


the papermill revivals

by princesskay



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Action & Romance, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - 1930s, Anal Sex, BDSM, Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Case Fic, Catholic Guilt, Corporal Punishment, Falling In Love, Graphic Description of Corpses, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Infidelity, Insomnia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Racist Language, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sacrilege, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Suicide, Under-negotiated Kink, Undercover, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:47:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 159,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26651644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princesskay/pseuds/princesskay
Summary: In 1932, US Bureau of Investigation Agent Bill Tench returns from a six month long campaign hunting down prolific bank robber Richard Speck that ended in tragedy to find that his seemingly idyllic hometown of Papermill, Virginia has welcomed new parish priest Father Holden Ford. The young clergyman’s progressive ideals are set to inflame the town - and very quickly Bill’s own heart, shattered by a terrible loss. But just like the intriguing priest, nothing in Papermill is as it seems; the town politics are rife with corruption and an alcohol scourge in the dying days of Prohibition. Bill and Holden are drawn not only to one another, but also into the brewing chaos and the demons that haunt them both.
Relationships: Bill Tench/Original Character(s), Holden Ford/Bill Tench
Comments: 311
Kudos: 118





	1. a wild animal's last rites

Papermill, Virginia

April, 1932

A day after Bill comes home from Wopsononock Mountain, the trap in the vegetable garden catches a rabid possum. 

The creature hisses, glazed-over, crazed eyes darting in every direction, as he approaches the rattling cage with the shotgun barrel dragging through the wet grass behind him. It had rained the night before, and everything has a damp, humid haze all over it. Dark clouds block out the dying sunlight of dusk, making the small, yet wild animal appear even more devilish in its fevered writhing. 

"Look what you did to yourself, you dumb son of a bitch." Bill says, tucking his cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

The possum lunges against the cage as if it can understand him. 

He hadn't meant it meanly, but rather pitifully. When he brings the shotgun to bear on the wild ball of matted fur and stares down the sight, his hands are shaking so hard that it takes him a minute of concentrated effort to guide his index over the trigger. 

Then:  _ BLAM.  _

The blast reverberates through the falling dusk, across the field of corn rustling in the slight breeze at his back, seeming to reach the sky. All at once, the possum is motionless and he can see its brains. 

Nancy comes out onto the porch once the echoing stops coming back to him. "Is it done?" 

"Yep." 

"Good." 

"I'll take it past Wright’s field." 

"Thank you." She says, her arms clutched around her middle. "When you're done, dinner will be ready." 

He stops at the barn for the shovel, wheelbarrow, and an old tarp before going back to pull the dead animal out of the cage. It seems a lot smaller free of the bars and in his hands. He wraps the tarp over the viscera, and hoists the wheelbarrow. 

Past the back fence that lines their property, It's a ten minute walk down the well-trod path in between the corn and soy that belongs to local farmer and their neighbor several acres off, Gordon Wright. Beyond the field, the landscape opens up into an empty stretch of wild grass where a single apple tree leans crookedly into the prevailing western winds. 

Underneath the fluttering leaves, at the base of the trunk, he digs a hole deep enough that he figures the coyotes won't get after the carcass. Sweat is rolling down his temples by the time he pats the dirt into an even patch over the disturbed grass. The sun went down, too, and the fading light stretches in purple and deep blue like a fresh bruise across the dome of the sky.

Leaning the shovel up against the tree, he pulls his flask out of his pocket and lights a cigarette. A slight breeze cools the sweat on his forehead while the gin makes his chest burn. 

He wonders if the possum hated him in that split second before it realized it was going to die, or if it was too sick to care. 

_ You're lucky, you stupid animal.  _ He thinks,  _ There's a million people out there like me who would be ready and willing to put you out of your misery that have no moral boundaries to stop them from doing it. Humans, we don't get that luxury.  _

He drains the flask, and tosses out his half-spent cigarette. He should head back. Nancy will be wondering where he's at. The man who left home six months ago to chase criminals through the Allegheny Valley wouldn't have taken the time to give a rabid possum a burial, much less a few parting thoughts. 

Tossing the shovel into the wheelbarrow, Bill heads back down the narrow path between the two fields. Halfway there, the breeze picks up, weaving an eerie rattle between the rows of corn stalks, and a faint patter of rain spits from the darkening sky. It doesn’t urge him to walk any faster. 

He’s been through worse. Hell, a lot worse. 

Before strapping a U.S. Bureau of Investigation badge to his belt, Bill had been a Master Sergeant in the Army. He survived the Great War and the deep trenches of Germany where he’d spent weeks fighting for his life alongside comrades who died by the hundreds each day. When he finally got home, sick of the carnage and weary to the bone, he thought he’d encountered the darkest side of humanity that he would ever see, but there’s a logic to war. The last six months have taught him that sometimes there is no logic when humans kill one another for personal or selfish reasons, with no cause, with no valor, with no dignity. 

_ At least the rain is indifferent, if not kind in it’s own way.  _

As he reaches the back yard of their house, he sees Nancy fighting against the billowing wind to get the laundry down from the line. 

Jim is helping her. Nancy had hired him to help around the property while Bill was away, providing employment to a black man where most people in this town would have refused. He was happy to know that someone was around giving Nancy a hand during his absence, but now that he’s back, he’s not sure what financial sense it makes to keep him on. 

Bill drops the wheelbarrow by the garden, and jogs across the yard. 

“Go inside.” He tells Nancy above the howl of the storm. “Jim and I can get this.”

Her reply is lost to the wind, but she darts back into the house. 

Bill yanks the last of the bedsheets from the line, and hoists the basket just as the rain evolves from a fine mist to a needling downpour. He and Jim run up onto the haven of the porch. 

“Welcome home, sir.” Jim says. 

Bill chuckles. “Thanks, Jim.”

Inside, the house smells of pork roast and potatoes. Bill’s stomach rumbles. Of all the things he’d missed while he was up in Pennsylvania, home cooking had been the most irreplaceable. 

“Jim,” Nancy says, pulling the money out of her purse, “Here’s your pay for today. And let me fix you some plates to take home to Annie and the kids.”

“You don’t have to do that, Mrs. Tench.”

“Of course I do. You said things are tight at home, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but-”

“Then, let me do this for you. It’s the least I can do for all your help in the past several months.”

Bill pats Jim on the back before the man can protest again. Jim offers him a grateful smile. 

Once the plates are packed away into a basket, Jim bids them both farewell. The passing shower had already eased. 

Bill and Nancy stand behind the screen door as they watch him make his way to the road. 

Nancy sighs, quietly, “So, do you think we can keep him on?”

“I don’t know, Nance. Everyone is struggling - including us.”

“I can’t bear the thought of those children going hungry.”

“I know.”

She falls quiet again. He rubs her back until she turns away from the door with a sigh, and leads them back into the kitchen. 

Dinner is nearly devoid of conversation. Bill keeps his focus directed to his plate. Nancy asks if it’s good, and he says yes the way he always does. Pork and potatoes, the same meal they’ve been eating for the last two years, but he can’t complain. Other folks whose employment hadn’t survived the economic crash are a lot worse off than he and Nancy. Folks like Jim Barney who don’t stand a chance of getting hired at the mill, the steadiest job in town which has been rife with layoffs and strikes ever since Black Tuesday. They don’t have small mouths to feed either. 

After he finishes eating, Bill goes into the living room to read the paper and smoke a cigarette. 

Nancy pulls out the ironing board. The radio plays at low volume while the hiss of the metal plate gliding across fabric interrupts the silent tension. 

Bill peeks over the top edge of the newspaper at her. 

She’s a good woman, a good wife. She doesn’t ask questions about things she knows he won’t answer. Things like the war. Things like the last six months. He feels guilty because he doesn’t deserve her, or the way she’s always taken care of him even when he’s been an ungrateful bastard. 

As Bill is skimming the last of an article about the increasing droughts out West, Nancy turns to him with two pressed suits on their hangers, one black and one gray. 

“Which one?” She asks, softly. 

He puts the newspaper down. “Aren’t you supposed to wear black to a funeral?”

“He was your partner. You should wear whatever you want.”

“The black, then.”

“Okay.” She says, setting aside the gray suit. She smooths the lapel of the black jacket. “You always look so handsome in black.”

He takes a drag of his cigarette, and goes back to his newspaper. 

There’s an article about the new priest at their parish, St. Stephen’s, implementing a food bank on the premises to help those struggling to put meals on the table. The journalist penning the article purports that the incentive had sparked some goodwill towards the man who had come into his position to the townspeople's dissent. His ideologies differ from their previous clergyman quite a bit; apparently, he supports desegregation and opposes the death penalty for criminals.  _ Papermill’s last pacifist.  _

“Nancy?”

“Hmm?”

“Is this new priest officiating at the funeral?”

“Father Ford?”

Bill consults the newspaper. “Yeah.”

“Yes, he is.” 

“Whatever happened to Father Jacobsen?”

“No one’s really sure. He left a month after you went down to Pennsylvania.” 

“What’s with this new guy?”

Nancy walks over to his armchair to get a look at the article. She chuckles softly. “The men in this town don’t much care for him, but the women surely do.” 

Bill scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, honey.” She says, waving a dismissive hand. “Hannah asked Father Ford to do it. And you know how David is- how he  _ was _ . I think he’d appreciate a kind and gentle voice at his funeral.”

Bill scoffs, “The voice of an anti-war, anti-capital punishment socialist?”

Nancy laughs. “Yes. That kind.”

There’s no picture of Father Ford accompanying the article, but Bill imagines a sallow fellow who never had to fight for his life. Perhaps he’d suffered some ailment that barred him from enlistment. He can’t think that someone such as that could find the words to sum up David’s life, a short thirty-five years fraught with poverty, war, and conflict that had never dulled his joy or his compassion. 

But he can’t find the words either. Not without choking on them. 

He can only hope this peace-loving priest is more eloquent at the graveside than Bill could ever hope to be. 

^^^

The day of David Ashford’s funeral is humid and gray but devoid of the intermittent rainfall that had plagued Bill's first few days back home. Nancy packs up the casserole that she baked for David’s widow and son, and holds it on her lap while Bill drives them into town where St. Stephen’s Church is located. 

The twin smokestacks of the town’s namesake, the Brudos Paper Mill, is daunting along the squatted skyline of the town, a small, close-knit community of red brick shops, restaurants, and office fronts. A wrought-iron archway bearing  _ Papermill  _ in bold text welcomes them down the main thoroughfare where they can see that the streets are almost empty, half the shops closed up; but when they reach the church, the parking lot is full. Everyone who had ever loved David and was within driving distance showed up. 

Bill takes the keys out of the ignition, and sits still staring up at the white steeple piercing the dull, gray clouds. His chest squeezes, unstoppable dread rising up in his belly. 

“Are you okay?” Nancy asks, putting a hand on his arm. 

He draws in a steadying breath.  _ No, this must be some sick joke. This isn’t right. David can’t be gone. No, I’m not fucking okay. _

“Fine.” He says. 

As they walk up the steps of the church, the children playing an impish game of tag in the yard stop to watch them. A few of the parents turn from attempting to corral the children into respectable behavior to whisper to one another. 

He tucks his chin down, ignoring the unwanted attention, and keeps walking until they get into the church. 

At the front of the auditorium, Hannah is standing beside the casket with a young man dressed in priest’s robes. The mysterious Father Ford. He’s comforting David’s widow with one hand on her arm and the other clutching his Bible. He looks to be no more than twenty-five, Bill thinks. A kid. 

Bill glances over when Nancy grabs onto his hand. She’s gazing up at him with compassionate eyes the color of brown sugar. He feels his pulse surge harder. 

“Come on.” She urges, softly, giving his knuckles a squeeze. 

They walk down the center aisle together, passing family and friends, a few mourners that Bill doesn’t even recognize, until they reach Hannah and Father Ford. 

“Hannah,” Nancy says, stretching out an arm, “I’m so sorry.”

Hannah, a fragile woman of no more than five feet and three inches, leans into Nancy’s embrace with a shuddering sigh. Her long, chestnut hair is bundled at her nape, but a few fine strands have already pulled loose around her narrow shoulders. She looks like a breakable twig even in Nancy’s petite arms. 

Her son, far too young to truly understand what is happening, is at her side. The boy stares obliviously at the floor. 

Bill can’t bring himself to look at David’s body in the casket yet, so he turns to the priest. 

“Father Ford, right?”

“Yes.” Ford says, offering a handshake. 

“Bill Tench. I was David’s partner.”

The father’s hand is soft and warm.  _ Definitely not a fighter.  _ Bill thinks, sizing up the priest. His earlier conclusions about Ford being sickly are more logically rebutted by the fact that he more than likely wasn’t even old enough to be drafted during the war. 

“Good to meet you.” Ford says, offering a warm smile. “Mrs. Ashford has told me so much about you, how you and David were thick as thieves.”

Bill ducks his head as the comment makes his throat constrict.

“I’m sorry. This must be such a difficult day for you.” Ford says, his tone dropping to a compassionate whisper. “Please, if there’s anything you need-”

“Thank you, Father. That’s kind.”

Ford holds his gaze for a moment. His eyes are incredibly blue. Then he turns to David’s son, and ushers him out of the way. “Let’s let the adults talk, okay, Brian?”

Hannah turns to Bill, her chin trembling. 

“Bill,” She whispers. 

He gazes at her wet, bloodshot eyes, her body rippling with fragile tears, feeling his chest tearing apart. Stepping closer, he pulls her to him. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers against her hair. “I’m so sorry I didn’t bring him home.”

She cries into his chest. Just cries and cries. And he can’t keep his gaze from wandering over to the open casket, David lying there with his face so pallid and his eyes forever shut. Somewhere beneath his clothes, they must have stitched the hole in his chest shut. 

He wants to look away, but he can’t. He stares at David’s motionless body and cold cheeks, the phrase repeating in his mind.  _ I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.  _

^^^

A sultry breeze drifts across the cemetery sequestered from onlookers by a wooden fence peeling with white, weathered paint. Beneath the wool of his black suit, Bill is sweating as he, David’s two brothers, Hannah’s brother, and two other friends carry the casket the short distance from the church to the plot dug out for his final resting place. There’s no stone yet, just a wooden cross fashioned from a strip of leather, David’s name notched into the horizontal piece with a knife. 

As they set the casket down, Bill gazes into the rectangular hole in the ground. He can’t imagine David spending the rest of eternity down there, but a part of him wants to follow down into the dirt. 

He and Nancy are seated in the second row behind Hannah, her son, and her parents. Across the aisle, Mayor Gunn and Sheriff Brudos are joined by their wives; a lot of important folks who had known David, but not really. Bill ignores Gunn’s slight wave as his gaze drifts back further through the rows. 

When he lays eyes on Mary McNeil, the nausea in his belly turns to cold stone. The woman is tall and thin yet sinewy, and her short, blond hair is styled in crimped waves that cling to her scalp. She meets his gaze, her eyes cold gray. She looks close to crying or flying into a rage, he can’t tell which. Unlike David, her husband isn’t getting a funeral. He hadn’t come back from Wopsononock Mountain in a body bag. He hadn’t come back at all. 

Bill’s eyes jolt straight ahead again when Father Ford shuffles to the front of the assembly with his Bible held open between his palms. He scans the sorrowful and stoic faces for a long moment before clearing his throat. 

“On behalf of the Ashford and Wilmont families, I’d like to thank everyone for coming today to remember and rejoice in David’s life.” 

A reply ripples across the mourners, a few sniffles already rising above the breeze. Bill shifts uncomfortably in his chair as Ford’s gaze circles around to him. 

“As most of you know, David was a courageous man. He fought bravely in the war, earning commendations for saving the lives of his comrades, and earning the respect of everyone that he served with. Later, he joined the U.S. Bureau of Investigation, fighting for the good of the people in the Prohibition efforts and against criminals who would exploit the less fortunate. I’ve spoken to his family and many of his friends, and I can tell you, though I never met the man, that I’ve not heard an ill word spoken of him. He was a true friend, the kind of person who would help a perfect stranger if he saw the need, and was loyal to those close to him even to a fault. But I don’t need to tell all of you good people that - you knew him. His grace, his kindness.”

Bill lowers his head, rubbing hard fingertips across his forehead and into his tear ducts as emotion crawls up the back of his throat to choke him. He can feel Nancy’s hand on his knee, but he feels far away, in the muddy foothills of Wopsononock, a small cabin where light streamed between the crooked, unsealed boards, a dirt floor that absorbed pints of blood. 

“Saying all that, losing David seems cruel, does it not?” Father Ford’s voice brings him back. 

Bill looks up past blurry eyelids. The priest is shaking his head. 

“We must be questioning God. Why would You take such a good man from us?” 

A hum of agreement across the crowd. Bill feels the noose around his throat tightening. 

“That’s all right.” Father Ford continues, casting a magnanimous gaze across the huddled mourners. “When King David’s first son fell gravely ill just after his birth, he questioned God. He fasted and prayed and pleaded that his boy not be taken from him. He didn’t know whether or not his son would live, so he fought against the idea of his death with all of his heart. Don’t we all? We aren’t less faithful for questioning God in a time like this. The Lord understands our pain.”

Bill’s chest shudders. 

Ford looks at him again. Into his eyes. Picking him out of the crowd. 

“But when his son died, David went out and fed himself and worshipped God again. He said, ‘I can go to him, but he cannot come back to me.’ He found peace in the loss. He questioned, as we all do, but he kept his faith. He submitted to God’s plan for his child, and found comfort in knowing that the boy was in His arms.” 

Bill can’t sit still any longer. Bolting out of his chair, he marches past the picket fence and leaves the funeral proceedings behind. He hears Nancy quietly protest, but he doesn’t look back. He can’t. 

A little over half an hour later, Father Ford finds him leaning against the western side of the church where the peaked roof offers cool shade. 

Bill glances up from the grass where the remnants of two cigarettes are crushed at his feet. He has a third balanced on his lower lip, bleeding soothing nicotine into his lungs. He scowls as the priest approaches, a sympathetic expression set on his soft, boyish features. 

“Did my words upset you?” 

Bill tilts his head back, exhaling smoke. “Sorry for running out like that. I know it was rude.”

“I got Hannah’s approval for the eulogy.” Father Ford says, clasping his hands in front of him. “I’m sorry it didn’t sit so well with you.”

“It’s just …” Bill scoffs, scratching at the back of his neck. “David dying wasn’t ‘God’s plan’.”

“Everything is God’s plan.”

“Everything?” Bill echoes, angrily, pushing away from the wall, “Really? Everything, Father?”

Ford blinks, slightly fazed by Bill’s vitriol. “Yes. It says in the Bible that-”

“I’m sorry.” Bill interrupts, holding up a defeated hand. “We don’t know each other. But you weren’t there, so you don’t get it.”

“I could try.”

Bill frowns at him, jaw working from side to side. 

“I’m not the pope. And I’m not like a lot of other priests who like to sit up on their high horses. I won’t try to pretend that I’m any more enlightened than everyone else, but as the leader of this parish, I think it’s my duty to listen and offer wisdom, comfort, or whatever may be needed. To all of my parishioners. Even the stubborn ones.”

Bill gives a choked laugh. He takes another drag of his cigarette, and shakes his head. “Something you should know about me, Father.  _ Stubborn  _ doesn’t begin to cut it.”

“We should get along nicely, then.”

“How old are you anyway?” Bill asks, some of the animosity in his chest melting as Ford draws closer. “You don’t look old enough to be a priest.”

“I’m twenty-nine.”

“Twenty-nine. Really?” 

“How old do you think a priest should be?”

“I don’t know. I thought you were younger.”

Ford leans against the brick beside Bill, and gazes out at the field stretching beyond the parish. His throat gleams with sweat above the white and black ring of his collar. 

“I look young.” He says, softly, a sad smile tipping his mouth. “But I feel old.”

Bill’s gaze joins Ford’s across the corn that glows like gold beneath scarce beams of sunlight peeking past the clouds. He flicks ashes toward the ground, and shakes his head. 

“Yeah, me too.”

They share the silence for a few minutes before Ford gently nudges Bill’s arm. “They’ll be wondering where we’re at.”

Bill nods, grimly. 

He follows Father Ford inside where the reception hall is set up to house the funeral luncheon. 

Nancy is helping set out the covered dishes. She casts him a worried gaze from across the room, and he tries to smile to let her know he’s okay. 

He snags a cup of coffee from the kitchen, and finds a table that’s mostly unoccupied. Everyone is speaking in hushed tones except for the children who are unaware of the density of today’s proceedings. Bill watches as David’s son, Brian, bobs and weaves in out of the folding tables with two friends. 

David had always spoken highly of his son despite some mental delay. The boy isn’t up to par with his peers when it comes to reading and writing and such, but he shared David’s love for the outdoors. He would often describe their fishing trips in detail, giving Brian all the benefit for the large catches. 

_ Your dad was the best man you could meet, kid.  _ Bill thinks, taking a stiff drink of his coffee.  _ How do we go on from there?  _

“Bill, how are you?”

Bill looks up sharply when Mayor Ted Gunn’s overly cordial tone interrupts his thoughts. 

Gunn is joined by the sheriff, Jerry Brudos, a lumbering man with a beer belly who relished his position over this town even before he became a lawman. His family owns and operates the mill, a sole source of revenue for the small town. 

“Ted, Jerry.” Bill says, rising from his chair to offer a pleasant handshake. 

He really wants to ask them what the hell they want from him on the day of his partner’s funeral, but the house of worship isn’t the place to air personal grievances. 

“We’re so sorry for your loss.” Ted says, squeezing Bill’s hand. “I lost a partner or two during my time with the Bureau, and I know how difficult it can be.”

“He was more than my partner. He was my best friend.”

“Of course.” Ted says, “Jerry and I just want to let you know that if you or David’s family need anything, we’re here.”

“Yeah, we took care of the town real good while you were gone.” Brudos says, smiling impishly. 

Bill wants to knock his head off. The guy always walks around looking like that. Smug. Up to no good. 

“I’m sure you heard.” Ted says, “During your absence, we ran the Corll gang out of business. The still has been dismantled.”

“I did hear something about it. It’s a relief.” Bill says, “We don’t want criminals living in our town. I’ve always believed that.”

“No, we don’t. Things have been really quiet since.” Brudos adds. 

“Good to hear.”

They all exchange distrustful gazes before Ted draws in a deep breath. “Well, like I said, let us know if you need anything.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Ted.”

The two leave Bill in peace, and he watches them slink away into the crowd with disdain simmering in his gut. 

Nancy had caught him up on the town events of the last six months the day he got back. He had been relieved to hear that Dean Corll, a known criminal who operated a liquor still among other shady dealings, had packed up his gang of misfit boys and departed Papermill for good. The man had been a pestilence to the upstanding townspeople for going on ten years - the exact type of person Bill had been trying to avoid when he moved from New York to the quiet suburb outside Alexandria after leaving the Army. 

As it had turned out, living in a small town during an economic crisis hadn’t delivered him from the scourge of corrupt officials. There had been rumors for almost as long as Corll operated that the mayor and sheriff were in cahoots with the criminals, not only investing in the trade of illegal alcohol but also using the gang for their own underhanded purposes like swaying election votes and intimidating witnesses. 

Bill doesn’t consider himself a hero, but he was the only person in town who had the balls to stand up to Gunn and Brudos. After the mayoral election which had been highly contested, he’d even brought in his superiors at the BOI to investigate the nefarious dealings. Unfortunately, both men had made a career out of using their high profile positions for personal gain, and the proof had either been burned or so well concealed that the probe resulted in nothing more than enduring enmity between Bill and the elected officials. 

Now, Bill has to wonder: why exactly did Corll leave behind such a profitable venture, especially when he had the law on his side? And with Corll gone, who is operating the still? It sure as hell isn’t out of working order. There’s liquor in this town, and Bill knows where to get it when he wants it for himself, yet another gray area in his life he doesn’t focus on too hard. 

All too soon, his little perch out of the fray is invaded again, this time by Mary McNeil. Her pale hand lingers near her throat, toying with the locket necklace hanging against the front of her high-collared, black dress. 

“Bill,” She says, her voice low and stiff. 

He shuffles to his feet. “Mary. How are you?”

“Holding up.” She whispers, her chin trembling. “Can we talk?”

Bill squints, glancing around the crowd of funeral goers. “This isn’t a good time.”

“I can’t wait.” 

He shifts his gaze back to her wild, gray eyes. There’s dark circles above her cheeks and she looks like a ghost, haunted by the unknown, by a sorrow that doesn’t have a name yet. 

“Please, Bill. Just give me some answers.” She says, pressing a hand to her mouth as she begins to cry. “I need to know. I need to know why Tuck … why he would-”

“Come on.” He says, putting a firm arm around her shoulders before she can make a scene. 

He leads her out of the reception area and into the hallway where the brick walls are lined with portraits of Jesus, Virgin Mary, and the saints. Her pale skin is like alabaster beneath the fractured, rainbow light pressing past the stain-glass window at the end of the hallway. 

“What did they tell you?” Bill asks. 

“That Tuck went crazy.” She says, sniffling quietly. “That he’s the one who pulled the trigger. That he took the money and ran.”

Bill nods, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” She echoes, her voice shaking. “Is that the truth, Bill? Is that what really happened? I can’t believe it! My husband wouldn’t do anything like that. He’s a good man.”

“Even good men do bad things, Mary. He just … I don’t know - let it all get it to him. You know how he was. His moods. He was never right after the war.”

“The war can’t explain this.” Mary says, rubbing hard at a tear streaking down her cheek. “You were his friend.  _ David  _ was his friend. Everyone here is looking at me like I did something wrong - like I married a monster - but I know him.”

“I was there.” Bill says, sharply, the turmoil in his own chest bubbling up. “Damnit, Mary. I watched him pull the trigger.”

She freezes except for the staggered, tearful hiccups rasping from her chest. She begins to shake her head again, but before she can protest, her face crumples with tears. 

He doesn’t hold her the way he held Hannah. He can’t. He just watches her break down until the worst of it passes. Then he offers her his handkerchief. 

She wipes her face slowly, and clutches the white, lace-lined fabric in her trembling fist while she crosses her arms around her middle. She lifts her chin. Her face is damp, like one of the pious saints, in the purple-yellow glow of the window. 

“I’m sorry.” He says, “I wish I could tell you a different story.”

“I should go.” She whispers, “No one wants me here.”

“That’s not true. They can’t blame you for what Tuck did.”

“You know the people in this town. They talk. They can and they will blame me. I don’t know if I can stay here.”

“Mary-”

“Thank you.” She mutters, pressing the damp handkerchief in his hand as she passes. 

He watches her go down the shadowed hall until she turns the corner and disappears. 

_ There’s always a different story.  _ He thinks,  _ The story we tell ourselves, the story we tell others, and lastly, the truth. _

He doesn’t know which one he’s telling anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited to be publishing this story! I've been working non-stop on it since I got back from vacation a month ago, and I've been dying to put it out into the world. It's definitely a departure from my other works. I've tried to do a lot of things in this story that I haven't tried before so I'm eager to hear your thoughts. Let me know what you think so far! ❤


	2. charity projects for broken souls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lie and a poem prove that Holden isn't a typical priest.

Holden Ford missed serving in the Great War by three years. He was eleven when the fighting began and fifteen when it ended in 1918 with the collapse of the German forces and the Treaty of Versailles.

Some people who didn’t know him still looked at him as if he had been old enough to serve but had gotten out of the draft somehow. But he wasn’t dumb, deaf, or blind, and he wasn’t a coward. Folks of that generation had a way of thinking that if you weren’t in the war, then you hadn’t really experienced real pain or suffering in your life. 

Holden didn't think he had missed anything. He did suffer a great deal. 

He was in an orphanage in New York City when the papers first started announcing that the United States had declared war. They were at the bottom of anyone’s priority list, but when the war efforts started in earnest, no one gave a shit about a bunch of ratty, good-for-nothing street urchins unless they could lend a hand in the fight. As a result, Holden spent four years inside St. Christopher's Home for Boys in Brooklyn fighting for every last scrap of food he could get.

Nobody thinks that about him - that he’d fought bare-knuckled for his life against boys twice his size. In part, his image is his own fault. He’d tried very hard to put that part of his life behind him. 

He was eventually adopted by an older couple who wanted to retire to their home in Milwaukee during the economic revival that thrived in the years after the war. Garnet Ford had fought valiantly in Germany and survived, but when he came home to his wife, both of their sons were dead. Holden was a charity project, an attempt by a man plagued with survivor’s guilt to transfer the undue trappings of his life onto someone less fortunate. 

The well-to-do Fords whisked him out of the filthy, rat-infested streets of New York City to the clear air and golden wheat fields of the Midwest - just in time, too, as the Spanish Flu swept in to kill thousands. He didn’t have to fight for his food anymore, but he spent only three comfortable years with the Fords before, at age eighteen, he decided he needed to fend for himself again. 

That’s all been a long time ago now, but Holden still hadn’t appreciated it when Bill Tench walked into St. Stephen’s looking at him with equal amounts of criticism and dismissal. Asking his age. Thinking he couldn’t find the words for a dead man taken too soon. Thinking he knew nothing about people like David. Holden had to remind himself that he’s a priest first, a compassionate person who takes on the sorrows of his flock and passes them on into the hands of God. 

He has enough of his own sorrows, but other folks’ guilt and questioning often feels better than his own on his shoulders. In a way, becoming a priest had been his destiny; and once he reminded himself of that sentiment, he looked into Bill’s eyes and saw a suffering so deep and buried that it won’t be easily knocked free with words. It will take time; time he’s willing to commit. 

Like his adoptive father, he has a penchant for charity projects and broken souls. For this reason, Holden is intrigued and pleased when he looks out the window of his small apartment at the back of the parish one night after David Ashford’s funeral to see Bill Tench stumbling among the headstones in a downpour, patently inebriated. 

He puts on his shoes, and steps out into the rain. 

^^^

A day after David’s funeral, Bill has to go into Washington D.C. to the Department of Justice building where the Bureau of Investigation headquarters is housed to give a formal statement of what happened in Altoona, Pennsylvania. 

Nancy packs him a lunch while he gets dressed in front of the mirror in their bedroom. As he pulls his tie taut around his collar, he uses his other hand to smooth back the cropped hair at the crown of his head. The rest is cut close to the skin, shimmering more with silver these days rather than the raven black of his youth. He’s almost thirty-eight years old, but he feels twice that, especially staring down the wrinkles beginning to spiderweb from around his eyes. 

“You look good, honey.” Nancy says, leaning in the doorway. “Now, come on, you’re gonna be late.”

Bill sighs, “Do you think they’ll tell me I’m getting too old to be chasing bank robbers and bootleggers across the country? Pull me off taskforces?”

“You’re not old. And I don’t know. Is that what you want to hear?”

“I’m not quite sure.”

She creeps up behind him, and props her chin against his shoulder. Their eyes meet in their reflection, and he finds it hard to keep up his end of the stare. 

“You’ve been through a lot.” She whispers, “They better go easy on you.”

“This is just a formality.” He says, turning and slipping out of her grasp. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

“A few hours at least. I’ll try to call from the DOJ building.”

“Okay.” She says, rising up on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. “Drive safely.”

Bill takes the paper sack with his lunch in it from her, and puts on his hat and his shoulder holster by the door. He never goes anywhere, especially out onto the road, unarmed. The back, winding paths surrounding Papermill are crawling with bootleggers, car-jackers, and other stupid thieves just trying to scrape by. Desperate times aside, he’s seen too much to easily leave his paranoia on his doorstep. 

As he’s driving down the road from their house, he sees Jim Barney walking along the shoulder. He eases the car to a stop, and leans over to roll down the passenger’s side window. 

“Hey, Jim.”

“Bill, I was just headed your way.” Jim says. 

_ Oh, right.  _ Bill thinks,  _ We haven’t said if we’re letting him go or not.  _

“I’m sure Nancy has plenty for you to do.” He says, instead. “I’m in D.C. for the day.”

“Commendation ceremony?”

“Hardly. Official statement on Speck and Altoona.”

“Right.” Jim says, nodding slowly. “Well, best of luck to you. I hope they give you a promotion.”

“I’m not looking for one. See ya, Barn.”

Bill shifts the car back into drive before Jim can offer any further unwarranted adulation. He flicks on the radio to the announcers bickering about President Hoover’s encroaching political demise and the plummeting unemployment rates before deciding he doesn’t want to hear about politics today. He turns the knob until sweet jazz tunes filter through the speakers. 

The drive up to D.C. is half an hour, but once he gets out of the back roads and onto the main thoroughfare, the trip is smooth and easy. Civilization starts cropping up as he heads into downtown, a stark difference from the narrow roads and wooden houses of Papermill. It’s like a whole other world, one that’s easy to forget out in the wild. He feels like a street dog being let in the back door to the freshly cleaned kitchen. 

On Tuesday morning, the Department of Justice building is bustling with activity. Bill shares an elevator with a dozen other men and the stench of cigarette and cigar smoke in the air before he finds his way to the BOI headquarters sequestered on the fourth floor. 

He goes to the conference room where Shepard told him the meeting would take place, and smokes a cigarette while he waits. Across the hallway, a cork board displays all the current WANTED posters. Richard Speck’s face is still among them. 

Bill gets up from the bench, and rips the poster down. Taking a hard drag of his cigarette, he stares down at the crumpled image of Speck’s wild eyes and the innate smirk on his mouth, the look of unhinged hubris. God taking him out of the world had been about the only good thing to happen on Wopsononock Mountain, Bill thinks. 

The door of the conference room swings open. A few other men that Bill doesn’t recognize file out before Shepard emerges. 

“Bill,” He says, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “Good to see you.”

“You too, sir.” Bill says, reaching out to shake his hand. He holds up the WANTED poster. “You might want to take these down.”

“Oh, for God’s sakes.” Shepard says, his brow furling.

Marching back into the conference room, he picks up the telephone in the center of the table and buzzes up to his office. 

“Alma, what are the Speck posters still doing up?” He barks into the receiver. “You did tell all the precincts to take them down, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” The secretary’s voice comes meekly across the lines. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll get it taken care of.”

Shepard hangs up without reply, and straightens to cast Bill a smile. He clears his throat. 

“Sorry about that. Let’s get started.” 

Bill pulls the door shut behind him. 

There’s two other men at the table besides SAC Shepard, DOJ internal affairs cronies Shepard had warned him about, and a secretary with her typewriter to transcribe the statement.

_ Just stick to the facts,  _ Shepard had said over the telephone last night.  _ With any luck, this will all blow over soon, and Hoover won’t string us up by our ballsacks.  _

The facts. 

He tells the facts as he told them to Mary McNeil: That they were chasing down Richard Speck, career criminal and bank robber, who was joined by his band of so-called “Hellraisers” when they followed a tip to the Shaw family mansion at the foot of Wopsononock Mountain. When they arrived, they found that Speck and company had held Mr. William Shaw, an oil magnate, and his family captive for days before murdering all of them one by one. Joined by local police, they engaged in weapons fire that killed most of the Hellraisers, but it was Bill who shot the gun that killed Speck. Tucker McNeil, Bill’s long-time friend and partner on the Speck case, murdered the third member of their team, David Ashford, in cold blood when David refused to let Tucker steal from the stash of money the paranoid Speck had hidden away beneath the floor of an abandoned cabin on the Shaw estate. He had escaped before Bill could stop him, and he’s out there somewhere with the money. 

The truth: that Bill never in a million years would have thought his friend capable of such a thing, but that good men do bad things. Good men become the enemy before your very eyes. 

“That is quite the tale, Agent Tench.” One of the DOJ officers says after he finishes the recounting. 

“We live in desperate times.” Bill says, “Desperate men do desperate things.”

“You knew Agent McNeil. What was so desperate about him?”

“He was sick, sir. Sick for a long time.”

“What illness did he have?”

“Not one of the body. Of the mind. They call it shell-shock, sir. He never got over it after the war. He had a bit of volatile nature which is part of the reason he was passed up for a promotion last year. He thought he’d earned it, and when it wasn't given to him, I think he harbored resentment toward the Bureau. My best guess, he's on a beach somewhere in Mexico living the high life for as long as he can.”

“I see.”

They gaze at him curiously for a long moment before the man raises his hands. 

“Well, I suppose that’s about all we need from you today. Unless you have anything else to add.”

“No, sir. That’s everything.”

The clatter of the typewriter ceases.

It had taken Bill two hours to relay the whole story in detail with the DOJ agents and Shepard interjecting with questions for clarification. When he emerges from the conference room, the window along the hall exposes the sun sinking down from high noon position into its evening travels toward the horizon. He doesn’t want to think about going home. 

“So, I guess there’s going to be a WANTED poster with Tuck’s face on it now instead of Speck’s.” Bill says to Shepard. 

“I don’t think so.”

“He’s a criminal now just like Speck.”

“He’s a BOI agent. Gone rogue, yes. But imagine how it would look for us if we were publicly hunting one of our own.”

Bill frowns at Shepard’s diplomatic tone. “Sir, he can’t just let him get away with murdering David.”

“Of course not. We’ll look for him on our own, but the whole world doesn’t need to know what happened on that mountain.”

Bill lowers his head. He can’t argue with that. “Yes, sir.”

“You’ve done well, Bill.” Shepard says, patting him on the back. “You survived. And you got Speck. That’s all we can ask of our agents. To get the bad guy.”

The bad guy. Bill doesn’t know who that is anymore. 

“You have the rest of the week off. Come in next Monday for a new assignment.” Shepard says. 

Bill nods, though he wants to argue he would rather get back to work right away. He has nothing to do with another three days off except go mad inside his own thoughts and avoid questions from Nancy. 

When he exits the front doors of the DOJ building and descends the wide, stone steps, a group of street kids are standing on the sidewalk selling papers and begging for coins. 

“Hey, aren’t you that guy?” One of the boys, an impish looking kid with red hair and smattering of freckles jumps out in front of him. 

Bill scowls down at him. “Excuse me?”

“Agent Tench, G-man. You killed that bank robber, Richard Speck!”

“How do you know about that?”

“It’s in the paper. Don’t ya read the paper?” The kid asks, grabbing one of the papers from the stack in his friend’s arms. 

Bill takes the paper, and stares down at the headline:  _ BANK ROBBER RICHARD SPECK AND CO. GUNNED DOWN IN ALTOONA, PA DURING SHOOTOUT WITH BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION AGENTS _

His name is in finer print below. Next to David’s. At first glance, he can see that Tucker isn’t mentioned. 

“You’re a hero.” The red haired boy says, his eyes going all wide with amazement and glee. 

“You shouldn’t believe everything you read.” Bill says. 

He flips the boy one nickel for the paper and another one for his friend. He can hear them fighting over the coins as he walks away with the newspaper clutched in his fist. 

^^^

Bill drives back to Papermill, but he doesn’t go home. 

Two miles down the road from his and Nancy's place, an abandoned house that had been the site of a fire stands in charred ruin beside a disheveled barn and rusted-out silo. He doesn’t know what happened to the family that had once lived here; the place looked this way ever since he and Nancy moved in down the road. 

He parks behind the barn, and goes to the back of the house where the root cellar had survived the fire. In the dark, musty recesses, a few shelves store outdated canned goods and a cardboard box of gin. He pulls out the half empty bottle that he's been using to top off his flask, and climbs back up into daylight. 

For the next few hours, he lays on the grass behind the barn with his coat balled up like a pillow beneath his head while he nurses the bottle of gin. 

It’s his one vice. Well, not the only one - just the one that he can use to deal with his other vices, and one that’s borderline acceptable around Prohibition laws that outlaw the manufacture and sale of liquor and not its consumption - laws which might be negligible by next year when Presidential hopeful, Roosevelt, takes office. The man has sworn to reverse the amendment should he be elected.

In between drinks, he smokes his cigarettes, and reads the newspaper. The Speck article is full of salacious, if not embellished details that make what happened sound like some kind of heroic Western shoot-em-up not much different from O.K. Corral. There's only a few lines about David’s death, more of a side note than anything else that glazes over the tragedy with pious martyrdom. 

_ Killed in the line of duty. Died heroically.  _ Bill thinks there isn’t any such thing as dying heroically.

When he finishes reading, he takes another long drink of gin to anesthetize the rift of pain in his chest. 

He stares up at the dark clouds rolling in across the blue skies. Another storm is picking up, the kind that can get strong and nasty, invigorated by humidity and pent-up clouds. He can’t bring himself to give a damn. 

Closing his eyes, he tilts his flushed cheeks up to the wind and tries not to think about David, or Tucker, or how much he despises himself right this moment. When the first spatter of rain falls on his face, he resigns himself to the fact that he can’t stay out here much longer. 

He doesn’t realize how drunk he is until he clambers to his feet, stumbles, nearly falls on his face, and catches himself against the warped siding of the barn. 

“Fuck.” He mutters, rubbing numb fingers over his eyes. 

Nancy is going to have a fit. 

Grabbing his coat from the grass, Bill staggers back to his car just as the downpour hits. He still has the nearly empty gin bottle in his hand. He’ll have to figure out what to do with it before he goes home. Not that tossing it out the window will help him escape the consequences; Nancy will be able to smell the alcohol on his breath. And it won’t be their first argument over the subject. 

Bill starts the car, and steers slowly back onto the road. He has every intention of going home, but he slips past their driveway toward town. He keeps driving, thinking of yesterday and the funeral, how he’d walked out on the eulogy like the biggest asshole to ever live. If David was here, that’s what he’d say. Then he’d punch Bill in the arm with no amount of gentility. 

The tears are hot and stinging in Bill’s eyes by the time he reaches St. Stephen’s, obscuring his vision of the cemetery along with the rain tumbling from a darkening sky. Hanging onto the gin bottle like a lifeline, he climbs out of the car, and weaves drunkenly past the white fence. 

David’s plot is clearly visible even in the dusky rain. The dirt is still piled in a disturbed mound over the burial place, and the makeshift, wooden cross is beaten to one side in the deluge. Bill makes his way slowly to it, his feet dragging numbly through the dirt and grass, his head swimming with gin. 

His voice is barely audible above the rain when he whispers, “I’m sorry, David. I did this to you, didn’t I?”

When there’s no answer, he tilts the bottle to his lips. He makes the mistake of opening his eyes to the sky with his head leaned back, and his equilibrium takes a swan dive. Stumbling forward, he drops the bottle to the grass and braces his hands against his knees. His head spins, the sound of the rain fading in and out. 

“Agent Tench?” 

He straightens and turns all in one motion, sees Father Ford walking toward him in the rain, and falls backwards on his ass. Grunting out a sound of shock, Bill lays still against the wet grass for several seconds with the rain pattering on his numb cheeks. 

“Are you all right?”

Cracking his eyelids open, Bill squints up at the priest standing over him. He isn’t wearing robes, just his black shirt and trousers with his white collar. He looks even younger without the robes. Twenty-nine still doesn’t seem right. 

“I’m fine.” Bill groans out, holding his forearm over his eyes to block out the sting of rain. 

“Come on, let’s get you inside.” 

Father Ford offers his hand, and Bill takes it because it’s better than lying here in the grass for the rest of the night feeling sorry for himself.

Ford digs his heels into the grass and leans back against Bill’s weight, grunting softly as he pulls Bill to his feet. When Bill is upright, swaying forward, he uses his other hand to clutch Bill’s elbow. 

“You can’t bring that inside.” He says, nodding at the gin bottle Bill had swiped from the ground on the way up. 

“Oh, right.” 

Bill drains to the last of the gin, garnering a disappointed click of the tongue from the priest. He tosses the empty bottle toward the row of trees lining the left side of the cemetery. 

“Okay, let’s go.” Ford says, shaking his head. 

They pick their way slowly past the headstones until they reach the gate. Just beyond the fence, a stone cobbled path splits in two, one way leading to the back door of the church, the other leading to the apartment at the back. Ford leads Bill down the second path, and ushers him inside. 

Bill glances around the scarce furnishings of the apartment, noting that Father Ford doesn’t have a television set or anything fancy. All of the furniture is sturdy, yet utilitarian wood with aged, floral cushion covers. A radio sits on the table beside a leather recliner, the one luxury in the apartment. 

“Welcome to my humble abode.” Ford says. 

“Smells like lemons in here.”

Ford chuckles, softly. “Yes. I just cleaned the floors so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t throw up on them.”

“Don’t worry. I can hold my liquor.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can.”

Bill thinks about saying something in return to match the sarcasm dripping from Ford’s tone, but the room is already fading out. All he can focus on is how warm the priest’s hands are against his lower back and elbow as they lead him to the couch. He sinks down without a word, and loses track of reality. 

^^^

Holden observes Bill’s drunken slumber for half an hour before he finds the Tench’s number in his phone book. 

Nancy answers on the first ring, her tone taut with worry, “Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Tench. It’s Father Ford.”

“Oh, hello, Father. I’m sorry. I was expecting someone else.”

“Your husband?”

A beat of confused silence before she whispers, “Yes, actually.”

“Don’t be alarmed, but he’s here with me at the parsonage.” 

“Oh, thank God. I was so worried. He left for Washington D.C. this morning and told me he’d call; but he never did. Is he all right?”

“I think it must be some kind of flu.” Holden says, casting a glance from the kitchen into the living room where Bill is dead asleep on the couch. “I was taking a walk before the rain hit, and found him pulled over to the side of the road very feverish.”

“I should come over there.”

“No, it’s quite alright. I gave him some medicine, and he’s sleeping now. But I don’t think I should send him home tonight.” 

“Are you sure?” Nancy asks, worriedly. “I mean, I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“It’s no trouble. He’s a member of this church the same as you. I’ll take care of him.”

Nancy doesn’t answer for a moment. He can hear her crying. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, softly. 

“I’ve just been so worried about him.” She sniffles, “I mean, even before tonight. The whole time he was in Pennsylvania, I had this horrible feeling that something awful would happen. And it has - to David. But that feeling hasn’t gone away, Father.”

“Nothing is going to happen to Bill. He’s safe with me.” Holden says, gently. “This is a strange, dark time, but you cannot allow yourself to fall victim to fear. What does the Lord tell us? That though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death …”

“We shall fear no evil.” She finishes, her voice still slightly quivering. 

“Yes.” Holden murmurs, “Get some sleep, Nancy. I’ll pray for both of you.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“And I will call you in the morning. I’m certain I can get this fever to break overnight.”

“Bless you, Father.”

After they hang up, Holden fills his teapot with water, and sets it on the stove to boil. Once he has a steaming cup of Earl Gray, he wanders back into the living room, and sits in the recliner to watch Bill sleep. 

He does pray. He prays for Nancy to be free from her fear. He prays that Bill doesn’t drink himself to death before he has a chance to tell the truth. He prays that no harm ever befalls him. For the most part, he means it. 

A few hours later, he’s skimming over passages in Matthew and scribbling notes for Sunday’s sermon when Bill stirs. He rolls over onto his back, groaning aloud as his heavy eyelids slip open against the soft, yellow lamplight. 

“Welcome back.” Holden says. 

Bill blinks at him as if he’d forgotten where he was. 

“How do you feel? Sick?”

Bill sighs another groan, and sits up slowly. Cradling his head in his hands, he leans forward, and breathes heavily against his palms. 

“I can show you where the bathroom is if you’re going to be sick.” Holden says.

“I’m fine.”

Holden sets aside his notebook and Bible, and goes into the kitchen for a glass of water. 

“Drink this.” He orders, sticking the cup in front of Bill’s face. 

Bill takes the glass with slow, trembling fingers, and sips on the water with his eyes pressed shut. 

“Don’t judge me, Father.” He says, quietly. 

“I’m not.” 

“I can tell that you are.” Bill opens his eyes to pin Holden with a glare. 

“God judges. Not us.”

Bill’s mouth curls in insolence, but he just shakes his head. 

“I think you should know that I called your wife.” Holden says. 

This gets Bill’s attention. “What?”

The look of panic on his face is so amusing that Holden keeps his mouth shut for at least five seconds before saying, “Don’t worry. I covered for you.”

“Covered for me? How?”

“I told her that you were sick with a fever. That I found you sitting in your car on the side of the road very ill.”

“Great. Another lie.” Bill mutters, rubbing a hand over his forehead. “What kind of priest are you? Lying to my wife like that?”

“A human one. I’m sure this was a slip-up. A mistake you don’t intend to repeat. Is that right?”

Bill shifts a perturbed gaze to Holden, the gray-blue of his eyes flickering with bouts of curiosity and defensiveness. 

“Sure.” He says, at last. 

“What did you mean by ‘another lie’?” Holden asks, hardly expecting an answer, but wanting to test Bill’s resistance. 

“Nothing I could tell you.”

“Bill, I’m your priest. You can tell me anything in full confidence.”

“I don’t remember agreeing for you to be my priest.”

“Will you come to Sunday mass with Nancy? She’s told me that you attended with her before you left on your trip to Pennsylvania.”

“Yeah. She likes for me to come.”

“Then I’m your priest. And you’re one of my flock.”

“Your flock.” Bill echoes, scoffing in the back of his throat. “Jesus. You’re just a kid to me. What are you going to tell me that I don’t already know?”

“One thing you do know - that you shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Right, sorry.”

Holden leans forward in his chair, and puts a hand on Bill’s forearm. He waits until Bill’s eyes are up and on him before he speaks again. 

“Men who drink in excess do it for a reason. I’ve seen it many times.” He says, as gently as he can. “It’s a form of medication, self-prescribed, but it won’t bring you any peace, Bill. It won’t make you happy again; it will only make you forget your sorrows for a little while.”

Bill stares back at him with red-rimmed eyes. He isn’t as guarded as he’d like to think; in fact, Holden can read him easily, the turmoil and guilt forced below the surface. 

“You should come to confession.” Holden says, relinquishing his hand from Bill’s arm. “Unburden yourself.”

Bill’s brow knits with a frown. “Confess. To you?”

“To God.”

“Of course. God.”

Holden procures a calm smile in response to the defensiveness in Bill's tone.

Bill drains the last of his water, and sets it on the coffee table with a deep sigh. 

“So, what else did you tell my wife?”

“That I could get the fever to break overnight, and I would call her in the morning. That you’re safe here with me.”

“You expect me to stay here?”

“Yes. Unless you want to tell your wife what you were really doing stumbling around the cemetery at six o’clock at night.” 

Bill glances away, teeth pinching at his lower lip. 

Holden studies him, his rigid jaw and gleaming eyes in the lamplight. For someone so masculine and fierce, there’s an unbearable fragility lurking just beneath the surface. 

He can’t stop himself from quietly asking, “You loved him, didn’t you?” 

Bill’s gaze swings back to Holden’s, alarmed. “Huh?”

“David.”

“Yes, of course. He was the best friend I ever had.”

Holden nods. “Good. A soul should never go into eternity without knowing that it’s loved entirely.”

“Who said that?”

“I did.”

Bill looks bewildered for a moment before he gives a quiet, choked laugh. “Some priest you are. A poet and a liar.”

Holden smiles again, this time genuinely. 

“Are you hungry?” He asks. 

“Uh … yeah.”

“Come with me to the kitchen.” Holden rises to his feet, and waves for Bill to follow him. “I have some shepherd’s pie in the refrigerator.” 

^^^

Bill has to admit, Father Ford’s shepherd's pie tastes delicious. He tries not to appear famished while he rapidly forks the savory bites into his mouth, but he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. 

Ford eats more primly, delicate bites followed by the dainty press of a napkin to the corner of his mouth.

He’s infuriatingly precise, Bill thinks. His perfectly combed hair, his pressed shirt, his neatly trimmed nails. He would look a little better with a bruised mouth every once in awhile, like he’d lived a little. 

He doesn’t let any of his irritation slip, however, since Ford is offering him a safe haven here tonight to dry out. He should really be grateful. Nancy would be hysterical if she knew the truth. He’s told her more than once that he would stop drinking, and she’s kind and stubborn enough to believe him every time, always heartbroken when she figures out it was another empty promise. 

“I’ll get you a pillow and blanket for the couch.” Father Ford says, “I wish I could offer more, but this apartment is only meant for one person.”

“It’s all right. I’ve slept in plenty worse places.”

“Of course. You were in the war.” Ford says it matter-of-factly, as if he knows all the details already. 

“Yeah, in the trenches.” Bill says, scraping his plate clean. “I can handle a couch.”

“I’m sure you’ve already done the math. I was too young to enlist.”

“Yeah. Lucky you.”

“That’s interesting. People like you usually make me feel as if I missed something by not fighting.”

“No.” Bill says, “I don’t think you could be a priest after seeing what I saw over there.”

“I’ve seen things, too. Human ugliness that doesn’t have anything to do with war.”

“Like what?”

Ford lifts his shoulders. “Perhaps you should come to confession.”

“That’s blackmail, isn’t it?”

“No. It's an incentive.”

They gaze at each other in the dim light of the kitchen for a long moment before Bill scoffs. He’s dying to figure this young priest out, and Ford knows it. Fuck, he knows it. 

“I’m beat.” He says, finally. “Mind if I get that pillow and blanket now?”

“Certainly.” 

Bill waits in the living room while Ford digs a blanket out of the linen closet. He scans the scarce shelves and bare walls. The only thing hanging on the drab, white paint is a crucifix above the couch. Jesus watching their every move. He doesn’t like the idea of trying to sleep below that watchful eye tonight. 

Ford comes back into the living room with a pillow and a yellow, fleece blanket. 

“Sleep well.” He says, smiling demurely. 

He turns to go down the hall to his room, but Bill clears his throat. 

“Father?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you … for this.”

“Please, don’t mention it.” Ford says, “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t call me ‘Father’ outside the parish. Holden will do.”

“Holden.” Bill says, testing his name awkwardly in his mouth. “Thank you, Holden.”

Ford smiles gently, and slips down the hall. 

Later that night, Bill sleeps fitfully on the couch. He keeps dreaming that he’s stumbling through the rain and forest at the rocky base of Wopsononock Mountain. David is up ahead somewhere, calling his name. He gets there too late every time. 

He jolts awake in the darkness, his body and mind disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he can barely make out the crucifix above him, and his stomach turns. 

Bill pulls the blanket over his face, but sleep evades him as the dream replays in his mind, the horrifying details that are no more than a reflection of reality called up from memory. David gunshot, bleeding, dying in his arms. 

Holden was right. He can’t make it go away with gin; he can only offer himself temporary amnesia that is far too short-lived. 

Bill fades in and out of sleep for the rest of the night. Somewhere around sunrise, when the light is just beginning to creep past the curtains, he realizes he isn’t alone in his machinations. From down the hallway, past the closed door of Holden’s bedroom, Bill can hear his pitiful moaning - the kind a hurt child makes in the midst of a nightmare. A few times he thinks of getting up to investigate, but he stays paralyzed beneath the fleece blanket, just listening to the priest cry. 

^^^

Bill doesn’t need to fake feeling ill to pad he and Holden’s story about what happened when he drunkenly stumbled into the cemetery; the next morning, his head is throbbing with a painful headache and his insides feel withered and poisoned from excessive gin. 

Bill declines Holden’s offer of breakfast, settling for a cup of coffee to stave off the hangover fatigue. Holden says, “suit yourself,” and enjoys a plate of scrambled eggs and toast while Bill hunches over stiff, black coffee.

Around 8:00, Holden takes Bill’s car keys from him, and insists on driving them over to Bill’s house. 

“How will you get back here?” Bill asks. 

“My own two feet.”

“That’s a long walk.”

“I enjoy the exercise. Besides, a nice long walk gives me time to clear my mind, pray, and plan for Sunday.”

Bill thinks he’s never met someone so odd, and he’s too bewildered to continue arguing. 

While Holden drives them over to Bill’s house, he observes the priest from the corner of his eye. The previous clergyman of St. Stephen’s, Father Jacobsen, had been an older, deeply religious man who never would have considered lying to cover up a drunken trespass; but he never would have talked so romantically of taking a long walk and talking to God either. Bill can’t tell if that makes Holden more or less pious than his predecessor. 

Bill doesn’t think Father Jacobsen had nightmares either, but neither he nor Holden mention night terrors. 

When they arrive at Bill’s home, Nancy darts out onto the porch with her arms extended. Bill lowers his head, and goes into her arms ruefully. 

“Are you okay?” Nancy asks, pulling back to cradle his cheek in her palm. “I was so worried.”

“I’m okay. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I wasn’t feeling well when I left D.C.”

“It’s okay.” She whispers, pulling him into another tight hug. “I’m just glad you’re safe. My mind was going to terrible places.”

Bill closes his eyes, and presses his face to her neck. Fresh guilt crawls like an invasive weed up his belly and chest, squeezing around his lungs. It seems like he’s always doing this to her - making her worry and wonder - but somehow manages to unduly earn her forgiveness every time. 

Nancy releases him from the embrace as Holden lingers at the base of the porch steps. 

“Father, thank you so much.” She says, going down to join him. 

Holden takes her hands in his own, and smiles down at her. “You’re welcome. It was my pleasure.”

“I hope he wasn’t too much trouble.” Nancy says, casting Bill a pointed gaze. 

“None at all. It was a long night, but with much prayer and needed rest we got through it.” Holden says, “Your husband is a good man.”

He looks at Bill while he says it, and Bill swallows hard. Is Holden trying to make him feel worse for his mistake, or does he mean it? Well, how could he mean it? Bill has yet to show him anything to make Holden think he’s a good man. 

“You’re such a blessing to our town.” Nancy says, “I don’t know how I can properly thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Take my kindness, and pass it on to someone else.” 

Nancy tries to make Holden come in for a cup of tea, but he gently declines. They both watch as he walks down the driveway and out onto the road. 

“So,” Nancy says, “Do you still think he’s an anti-war socialist?”

“I don’t know.” Bill replies, shaking his head. “I don’t know what to make of him, Nance.”

For the rest of the day, he’s relegated to the couch with plenty of liquids and chicken broth. He doesn’t protest the treatment. As it turns out, Nancy’s remedies for the flu are just as effective when it comes to a hangover. 

That night, he sleeps for nearly ten hours, and wakes the next morning feeling refreshed. He tells Nancy that he’s already kicked the flu in the ass, and she’s content to believe him. He can’t tell whether or not she has sensed any part of the truth. Neither of them are interested in breaking the status quo. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bill is mystified ... What do you think of Holden??


	3. for they shall see god

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill takes Holden up on his offer of confession and is surprised by the results

Holden steps out in front of the congregation that Sunday to a kinder reception from weeks past. He can’t differentiate whether his reputation in this town has finally found stable footing, or if he’s simply pleased to see Bill sitting in the pew beside his wife. 

This Mass, he reads from the book of Matthew, the Beatitudes. The dark pall of David Ashford’s death hangs over the townspeople, and this particular passage has always provided a solace to him that he hopes he can convey to the public. He can see the pang of sorrow in Bill’s gaze from across the auditorium when he says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” 

At the conclusion of the service, the line forms for confession. Holden bites back a smile when he sees Bill hanging around nervously at the back just before he ducks into the booth. 

Most of the people in Papermill are devoted Catholics. It’s a small town of small people, folks who have mostly committed venial sins, nothing like the mortal sins Holden suspects someone like Bill is guilty of. He hands out Hail Marys and Our Fathers down the line of little white lies, grudges, bad attitudes, and cursing until the chapel is nearly empty and Bill is hovering outside of the confessional. 

Holden steps out of his side of the booth to cast Bill a smile. 

“You came.”

Bill nods, turning his fedora around in his hands. “There’s no point in not coming anymore, now is there?”

“What do you mean?”

“You already know some of my sins. The worse ones.” 

Holden clasps his hands in front of him, and tilts his head as he dissects Bill’s guarded, yet anxious expression. 

“They’re not for me to know. You’re confessing to God.” Holden says, “Do you fear God?”

“Don’t we all?”

“It isn’t about fear. It’s about letting go and asking for forgiveness.”

“Right. Penance.” 

“You think I’m going to assign you some terrible act of self-denial or mortification?”

Bill scoffs. He’s faintly blushing beneath sun-weathered skin. 

“You might be surprised.” Holden says, “Sometimes we beat ourselves up on the inside enough that one Our Father does the trick.”

Bill frowns, softly. “I find that hard to believe.”

“You won’t know until you go in.”

Bill draws in a deep breath. 

They re-enter the confessional together, and Holden is disappointed that he can’t see Bill’s face any longer just before he reminds himself that he’s acting as a conduit of God right now, not operating for his own personal gain. 

Bill is quiet from the other side of the curtain for a long moment before Holden hears him inhale another shaky breath, followed by the shuffle of his fingertips making the sign of the cross over his chest. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been seven months since my last confession.”

“Welcome back then, child.”

Another pause. Holden absently toys with his rosary. He can tell the “child” part bothers Bill. He’s still hung up on their age difference, but Holden has always felt that the address sets his congregants at ease. They’re reminded of their youth, coming to their father for protection and love. 

“Don’t be afraid.” Holden says as the silence lengthens, “Trust in God, who wants to forgive you, and is a merciful father.”

“Well, to be honest, Father, I’m not sure where to start. Since my last confession, I’ve done a lot of things … things I’m not proud of. Things that are going to condemn me, really.”

“You won’t be condemned if you are truly penitent and want to do right again. Perhaps you should start with the smallest offense, and work up from there.”

“We might be here for awhile.”

“I’m here as long as you need me to be.”

“That’s kind, Father. It’s good that I’m talking to a priest like you and not anyone else.”

Holden frowns at this remark, intrigued by Bill’s perception of him. Perhaps he’s spent so much time chasing down criminals that he, too, recognizes broken souls. 

“I’m guilty of a lot of things.” Bill continues, quietly. “Anger, lying, cursing, drinking alcohol, taking things that don’t belong to me, being no friend at all to the people who trust me …”

His voice tapers off into a shudder. 

“Yes, child, keep going. Unburden yourself completely.”

Bill draws in a hitched breath. “Taking my wife for granted. Not giving her the attention and respect she deserves. Being selfish, ungrateful, bitter …” His voice chokes off again, and Holden hears the knot of tears in the back of his throat. “I’m sorry-”

“Don’t apologize for being contrite.”

Bill clears his throat and finishes the confession hastily despite the reassurance, “That’s all I can remember right now. I’m sorry for these, and all my sins.”

Holden considers the numerous trespasses. Surely, they aren’t the entirety of his sins or all that Bill can remember. There’s something else deep below the surface that Holden isn’t going to get from his first confession in half a year. 

“Well?” Bill asks, “What’s my penance, Father?”

“Patience, first of all.” Holden says, laughing softly. 

“Right. Should have known.” Bill gripes. 

“Patience and pondering. I want you to consider what I said today in Mass for the next week - the Beatitudes. Read them every day, study them, pray on them.”

Bill is quiet, but Holden can hear the bewilderment rippling past the curtain. 

“Not only that, but you would do well with some acts of service.” Holden continues, “So many of the sins you have confessed today lead back to one thing - selfishness. You need to remember that you share your life with so many other people who love you and strangers as well.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I’m taking the food bank through the shanty towns next weekend. I want you to come with me and serve the poor. It’s a very humbling experience.”

There’s a pause in which Holden can tell that Bill wants to argue with this assignment, but he lets out a sigh instead, “Okay.”

“All right then. Pray an act of contrition, and I can release you.” Holden says, offering a congenial tone. 

While Bill prays the rite of penance, Holden listens to the unsteady recitation with a faint smile. He has his own things to confess to, his own weaknesses, but surely assigning Bill a penance that will earn Holden more time with him is a paltry venial sin and not a mortal one, nothing that might throw his soul into danger. If it goes too far, he has his own personal penances that he’s all too familiar with. 

^^^

On Monday morning, Bill brings his Bible to the breakfast table, and lays it open to the book of Matthew while he sips his coffee. 

Nancy looks at him in surprise. “You’re reading the Bible?”

“You wanted me to get back into church, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” She says, her smile widening as she sets his breakfast plate in front of him. “The Beatitudes. So, this is part of your penance, then?”

“How did you know?”

“Father Ford.” She says, “It’s a favorite assignment of his to have you study the week’s sermon. He told me once that it makes him feel closer to the congregation that we are all pondering the same things together.”

“The sermon made me ponder enough. I don’t know what more I can get out of it on my own.” Bill says, frowning at the words on the page. "I'm no theologian."

“I’m sure he has a wonderful answer to that.”

“I’ll have to bring it up next weekend. He wants me to help him with the food delivery to the poor folks over in the shanty towns, too.”

“Really?” Nancy asks, sitting down at the table with him, her eyebrows raised. “That’s wonderful.”

“Is it?”

Nancy chuckles at his grim expression. 

Bill’s thoughts keep getting stuck on a particular line of the Beatitudes:  _ blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.  _ If he squints, he can see himself in some of the other lines - the mourner, the peacemaker, the persecuted - but even if he combs back through years of his life, he can’t envision himself as pure of heart. His history is steeped in lies and regret. 

Bill has to set aside his pondering once he finishes breakfast. He’s headed back into D.C. today to find out about his new assignment at work, a decision he’s hardly looking forward to. Either he’ll be punished and demoted for the disastrous end of the Speck campaign, or the BOI brass will fall in line with the press that’s hailing him a hero - and he's not sure which one he would prefer. 

Nancy stops him at the door before he leaves. 

“Whatever happens, we'll get through it.” She says, squeezing his hand. 

He drops a quick kiss on her cheek before heading out the door. 

Half an hour later, he’s parking in front of the Department of Justice building, finishing off the last of his cigarette. He left his flask at home. He silently wishes he had it stashed in the dash of the car, but he’s trying to stay the course for at least a week after confession. Disappointing Holden by drinking again is almost more humiliating than disappointing God; God has been disappointed in him for a long time. 

Pushing aside his nerves, Bill gets out of the car, and walks into the building. The BOI headquarters on the fourth floor is already alive with activity, chattering typewriters, and ringing telephones. When Bill walks through the door, the bustle grinds to a halt. Almost every agent in the bullpen turns to look at him. 

“Bill!” Gregg Smith, an agent Bill has worked with for close to five years is the first to speak. “We didn’t know you were coming back today or we would have had a cake or something.”

“No cakes necessary.” Bill says, but his humility is cut short. 

The whole room stands up to applaud. 

He waves off the praise, his face growing hot with unbearable shame. He wants to scream at them all to stop, that he doesn’t deserve any kind of commendation; but they’re all clustering around him.  _ Let me shake your hand. You took down Richard Speck; good man you are. You’re a real stand-up guy, Tench.  _

“All right, all right,” He says, finally holding up both hands, “That’s enough. I just want it to be business as usual today.”

As everyone shuffles back to their desks, Shepard’s office door at the back of the bullpen swings open. The SAC steps just outside of the threshold and gazes across the room at Bill with his hands tucked in his pockets, a somber expression on his face. 

Bill makes his way down the aisle of desks until he reaches Shepard. 

“Good morning, sir.” 

“Good morning.” Shepard says, standing aside and waving Bill into his office. 

Bill goes inside to see a woman that he doesn’t recognize sitting in the chair across from Shepard’s desk. Her blond hair is pulled back in neat waves, and she’s dressed conservatively in a slim, wool skirt and buttoned jacket; but when she looks up to acknowledge them, her face is what he would expect on a film screen rather than within the halls of the BOI.

“Bill, I’d like you to meet Agent Wendy Carr.” Shepard says, waving a hand between them.

Wendy rises from her chair, and offers Bill her hand. It’s positioned for a firm shake, not a kiss on the wrist, and when their palms meet, her grip is firmer than some men’s. 

“Lovely to meet you.” She says, meeting his surprised gaze with cool, hazel eyes. 

“My pleasure.” Bill says, “Bill. Bill Tench.”

She nods, retracting her hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Not in the papers, I hope.”

“Directly from SAC Shepard.” Wendy says, a smile fracturing her icy facade. “I think you’re going to make a wonderful addition to my department.”

“And which department is that?”

“Bill, why don’t we all take a seat?” Shepard interjects, motioning for him to sit down in the unoccupied chair beside Wendy. 

Nervous sweat lines Bill’s palms as he doffs his hat and sits down. He’s never been asked to work for a woman before, let alone in a department he isn’t familiar with. He’s been in the bootlegging and bank robbing business for close to ten years, but he can already see that those days are coming to a close. 

“I’ve spoken with Director Hoover.” Shepard says as he sits behind his desk. “Obviously, he isn’t too happy about the way Altoona and Speck ended, but let me preface this conversation by saying that this isn’t meant as punishment.” 

“I’d prefer it if you cut to the chase, sir.” Bill says, “Am I being demoted?”

“Hardly. Some would call it a promotion.” Shepard says, “You won’t be going out into the field for months at a time, risking your life, or being forced away from your family and home. It’s a cushy job if there is one in the BOI, Tench.”

Bill frowns. Shepard is trying very hard to convince him. 

“As Agent Carr said, you’ll be working with her and her department in land and bank fraud.”

“Fraud.” Bill echoes. 

“Yes. A growing issue these days with the economy the way it is.” Shepard says, “Everyone is scheming for more. It’s been an integral division of the BOI since the early days, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“White collar crime.” Bill says, “I’m being put out to pasture is what you’re saying.”

“Bill, Altoona and Speck - they seasoned you.” Shepard says, leaning forward to look Bill in the eyes, “They aged you. I’ve been through it. Every top agent in this department has. You come away different, and let me tell you, no matter how you feel right now, your days of playing Wyatt Earp and the Wild West are behind you. It’s time to come home.”

Bill can’t argue because the decision has already been made, but inside a part of him is already withering behind a desk job. Despite his uncertainty earlier in the day, he knows now how he feels about the new assignment; he’s going to have to confess to more bitterness and anger the next time he meets Holden behind the curtain. 

The white-collar division has a separate office three doors down. The bullpen is a lot quieter than over in the larceny and Prohibition section that gives Bill an even stronger sense of alienation. 

“So, I guess I won’t be needing this much any more.” Bill says, motioning to the pistol in his shoulder holster as Wendy shows him to his new desk. 

“You might be surprised.” 

“You get in a lot of shoot-outs with bankers?”

“We’re mainly dealing with the rich.” Wendy says, “Rich people trying to get richer. They have the money and means to acquire firearms and protection, and they will use it. These are smart criminals, Bill. You should give this department a chance.”

“I’ll do my best.” 

“Get settled in and I’ll start showing you how we operate.”

He watches as Wendy goes to her office at the back of the bullpen, indicating that she’s at the same level as Shepard when it comes to their two departments.

A few days later, as she’s showing him how she deciphers fraudulent bank registers, he leans back in his chair and asks, “So how did a woman get to be the head of a BOI department?”

“Hard work.” She replies, her expression cut from stone. 

“I’d think it might be tricky to get respect from some of the men around here. Some of them have been with the Bureau since it was founded, when there were absolutely no women allowed around here.”

“I don’t really care for what men think of me. I know the value of my work.” 

Bill has to laugh. He’s never met a woman as ballsy as Wendy, and he’s inclined to like her. Maybe white collar won’t be so abysmal after all. 

^^^

At home, Bill keeps his conflict over his new job assignment to himself. Nancy had never much cared for his dangerous jaunts across the country pursuing men like Richard Speck and the Hellraisers, and he knows she’s happy with the change. 

The first week in the fraud department is quiet; he spends most of his time learning the ropes of his new position and taking notes from Wendy. He’s committed, no matter his grievances, to doing the best job that he can, and he’s so focused that by the time the weekend rolls back around, he’d almost entirely forgotten about his penance of charity work. 

Holden calls the house on Friday evening. Nancy answers, and quickly hands the telephone over to Bill with a giddy smile. 

Bill bites the inside of his cheek, and takes the phone. “Hello?”

“Bill, hello.” Holden says, “I was calling about our trip tomorrow.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’d just like to sort out the particulars. The two shanty towns I’d like to visit are a half hour drive from here so I’d like to leave early - around seven.”

“Okay.”

“And I’ll need you to meet me at the church.” Holden adds, “We’ll have to load up all the food into the truck.”

“Sounds good. Anyone else joining us?”

“Yes, I have a few other congregants that wanted to help.”

“Oh, so it’s not an assignment for them.”

“No, they’re doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.”

“And you?”

“Oh, Bill.” Holden says, laughing quietly, almost self-deprecating, “Everything is a penance for me. Just don’t be late.”

After they hang up, Bill thinks about that statement for the rest of the night, harder than he’d thought about the Beatitudes.  _ Everything is a penance for me.  _

Holden had suggested that Bill coming to confession might tempt him to reveal more about himself, but their conversations since then have only made Bill more baffled by the young priest. How can someone who seems so devoted and religious require such rigorous penance? Surely he’s not guilty of all the mortal sins Bill has committed. 

The next morning, he gets up early, before the sun, and dresses for the day. The forecast looks warm and muggy for late April, last week’s rain melted away into resplendent sunlight and puffy, white clouds against a crisp, blue sky. 

He tucks his flask in his pocket. Just in case. Takes it out again, puts it back in. He probably won’t drink from it, he thinks. Not with Holden watching, and certainly just giving himself the temptation doesn’t carry such a heavy penalty as actually tasting it. It’s just a nice weight in his breast pocket, a reassurance. 

Nancy crawls out of bed as he’s leaving. He kisses her half-awake mouth before slipping out of the house. She mutters something about having a good time. She isn’t alert enough for him to remind her that he isn’t supposed to be having a good time; he’s supposed to be learning a lesson about selfishness and humility.

Even so, as he’s driving down the quiet roads into town, a small part of his chest is leaping at the thought of spending the day with Holden.  _ It isn’t that he likes him, or that they’re friends.  _ He thinks, strictly,  _ But he’s going to solve the puzzle of Holden Ford as if it’s the last case he’ll ever work, fraud department be damned.  _

When he arrives at the church, a handful of other parishioners are carrying boxes of canned goods and dry stock to the truck parked near the pantry door. Holden is among them, dressed neatly, as always, in his cassock and white collar. 

Bill shuffles awkwardly to the edge of the group who all seem a little too perky for seven o’clock in the morning. 

“Bill, you made it.” Holden says, checking his watch. “And only five minutes late.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry. There’s still plenty more to pack up.” Holden says, hoisting a box of canned green beans and corn onto the bed of the truck. “I’ll show you.”

Bill follows him through the side door into the pantry. The food bank had grown considerably since its inception only a few weeks prior, and Holden seems pleased by the stock. 

“We’re not taking everything today.” He says, “Just everything from these cabinets on the left so just grab whatever you can carry, and bring it out to the truck.”

Bill rolls up his sleeves, and piles as many boxes as he can carry into his arms. 

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Holden warns, picking up a smaller box of canned beans. “We have plenty of help.”

“Do I not look strong enough to handle this?” Bill asks, casting him a smirk as he hoists the boxes with ease. 

“No, you look plenty strong.” 

Bill could almost swear Holden is blushing. He quickly carries the canned goods back out to the truck, trying to convince himself he’s imagining things. 

It takes the group only another ten minutes before everything is safely packed away in the bed of the truck. Holden asks Bill to drive, and Bill accepts without complaint, eager to distract himself with the task on the half hour drive out past Alexandria to the shanty towns surrounding the larger Arlington. 

To his chagrin, Holden takes the narrow, middle seat beside him while another man from the church takes the passenger’s seat. The rest of the do-gooders pile into the cramped backseat. 

Bill rolls down the window after he pulls out onto the road. As if it wasn’t warm enough today, Holden’s shoulder is pressed tightly to his own, and if he nudges his knee just slightly to the right, he would collide with Holden’s leg. 

“All right, everyone,” Holden says, twisting around so that he can look each congregant in the eye before proceeding, “I want you all to remember that what you see today might be a little difficult to handle. We’re going to a very poverty stricken neighborhood, folks who are unemployed and starving, children who are suffering the most during this dark time in our country. Take it all in. Don’t be afraid to look at it, and do two things: realize how lucky you are for what God has given you, and promise that you will do more to help your fellow, struggling man in the future.”

There’s a hum of agreement around the truck. 

Bill is distracted noticing the sweat gleaming on Holden’s neck just above his collar. He wonders why he’s wearing long sleeves on such a hot day, and if his forearms are just as soft as his hands. He does his best to shake the errant thoughts from his head. 

As they drive, the rest of the group quietly joins together in singing hymns, but Holden’s fingers keep Bill’s attention as they toy with the pendant necklace around his throat. 

“What is that?” Bill asks, keeping his voice below the notes of “Amazing Grace.” 

“This?” Holden asks, lifting the necklace. “It’s Saint Anthony.”

Bill scrutinizes the saint’s face embossed on the brass disc before turning his attention back to the road. “The patron saint of lost and stolen items.”

“So, you know him.”

“I’m not that bad of a Catholic.”

Holden chuckles. “You can invoke him as the patron saint of just about everything, but most especially lost things - lost souls.” 

“I see. Makes sense with where we’re going today.”

“Well, some of these people aren’t lost, they’re just destitute. They have been stolen from by the government and those in power. The rich folks and the Wall Street hacks are the ones who are truly lost.”

“Oh, so you’re an anarchist as well?”

Holden smiles, coolly. “Some people might say that. I don't know how anyone couldn't be just a little bit of an anarchist after the way President Hoover has handled his administration during this crisis.”

“You know, the first impression I got of you was from a newspaper article in the  _ Papermill Constitution.  _ About this food back, actually.”

“I know the one.” Holden says, “Teaches me not to speak to journalists about the work of God any longer, doesn’t it?”

“I thought it was a fair assessment.” 

Holden casts him an alarmed gaze before reading the jest in Bill’s eyes. He begins to smile. “You’re kind of a jerk, you know that?”

“Yep.” Bill says, “Isn’t it wrong to call people names?”

“Yes, of course.” Holden says, sighing softly despite the smile lingering on his mouth. 

“We confess to you, but who do you confess to?”

Holden’s brow furrows, the smile melting entirely. He shifts his gaze forward again, and leaves that question unanswered. Eventually, he begins singing along with the rest of the group to “This Is My Father’s World.” 

He has a nice voice, Bill thinks. One he’d like to listen to for more than the length of a hymn. He pins his eyes to the road, and tries to focus on Holden’s impeccable tenor rather than the perspiration on his neck. 

^^^

Holden has been to the shanty towns, so called “Hoovervilles” before. He’s been to the soup kitchens in Arlington, the children’s homes in D.C., and poverty beyond the borders of the United States, too. In his effort to earn his appointment as a priest of his own parish, he had seen quite a lot. It didn’t upset him quite as much as it often upset his peers or his parishioners; it was no more than a reflection of his own childhood. 

When he and Bill walk down the main thoroughfare, which is really just two parallel ruts in the dirt of this particular shantytown, nicknamed Muddytown for its frequent flooding from the nearby river, he has to imagine that Bill has seen a couple things too. Unlike the other folks who had tagged along on this mission, he doesn’t flinch at the sight of metal and wood huts cobbled together, dirty men and women sitting dejectedly around open fires, or the obviously malnourished children running half-naked between the temporary houses. His face is calm even when the starving inhabitants of the vagrant town swarm around them like a mob to be the first in line for fresh food. 

Holden watches him carefully while they try to be diplomatic in who gets what, rationing out the supplies to every family along with pocket-sized New Testament Bibles. If anything, he seems on edge and defensive of the poor living conditions, leading Holden to worry that this particular penance might be falling by the wayside. 

After they have finished handing out most of the food, the other parishioners converse with the locals while Bill and Holden pack up the empty boxes and bags into the truck. 

“Why just New Testaments?” Bill asks, turning over one of the small volumes in his palm. 

“They’re easily carried and cheap.” Holden says, “Besides, if I’m giving these people the Bible, I would prefer it to be the kind, loving words of Jesus, not fire and brimstone.”

“Makes sense. I grew up Protestant. A lot of fire and brimstone. I have to say, it never quite touched me the way your sermons do.”

Holden’s chest flutters, and he tries hard not to let the smile overtake his face. “My words have touched you?”

Bill’s own smile is rueful. “Of course.”

“It’s difficult to tell sometimes.” Holden says, turning to lean against the side of the truck. He squints at the skinny children playing a game of tag around the firepit. “When we got here this morning, I couldn’t tell if all this was bothering you the way it bothers most people or not.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve seen it before. In Europe.” 

Holden peeks up at Bill’s stoic profile. “The war.”

“Yeah. Only this isn’t a war. It’s the people of this country.” Bill says, his voice softening. 

Before Holden can reply, a boy no more than six years old comes darting up to them. He’s wearing trousers only, exposing his ribs and his slightly swollen belly, a sign of severe malnutrition. He pulls to a halt at Bill’s feet, wide, brown eyes slowly climbing to regard Bill’s stony expression. 

“Can I …?”

Bill crouches down in front of the boy, and puts a hand on his arm, his face softening compassionately. 

“Can I have some more?” The boy whispers, holding a hand over his mouth to block the words from the rest of the children playing. 

“Well,” Bill says, “My friends and I rationed this food very carefully so everyone gets some … but, I think I have a little more here in my pocket.”

Holden purses his lips against a smile as Bill pulls a package of dried, salted pork from his shirt pocket. It wasn’t a part of the food bank, but a snack Holden imagines Nancy must have tucked in there before he left the house this morning. 

“Thank you.” The boy whispers. 

As he scampers away, Bill rises to his feet with a sigh. 

“That was very generous of you.” Holden says. 

“It doesn’t matter, does it? Chances are, starvation or disease is gonna get him in a few years.”

“That’s not necessarily true.”

“Well, I’m a realist not an optimist.”

Holden swallows hard as he scans the camp. Whenever he comes here, he does his best to think that he’s doing some good, making a difference. He made it out of a situation like this one, so why can’t someone else? But the truth is, he’d seen enough of his own friends in the orphanage succumb to illness or famine than he cares to remember - and probably more whose fates he’ll never know about since the Fords took him home just before the Spanish Flu hit.

“That’s the worst part, right?” Bill says, finally. 

“What’s that?”

“You’re trying to reform me into a good person, but I’m not - and I can’t imagine how I’m supposed to walk through the gates of heaven at the same level as these innocent kids. They’re the pure of heart you were talking about at Mass last week.”

“I disagree.” Holden says, “I do think you’re a good person, Bill. You’re capable of being a good person just like everyone else. That’s what the Beatitudes is about - striving for something and bettering yourself, not measuring yourself up against other people.” 

Bill scoffs. "If you say so."

Ready to change the subject, Holden clears his throat, “Mind if I ask a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“I can see that you are good with these children. Why don’t you have any of your own?”

Bill scowls and looks away, and Holden can tell he’s hit a nerve. 

“You don’t have to answer if it’s  _ too  _ personal.” He adds. 

“No, it’s alright. Nancy and I have tried. It’s just … not in God’s plan.”

“Have you considered adopting?”

“Adopting? I couldn’t imagine starting at the beginning at my age. I’m going to be forty years old in three years. I’ll be an old man by the time the kid graduates.”

“I don’t see a problem with that math. For a child in an orphanage who doesn’t have a home, they don’t mind starting with you at any point. They just want someone to love them.”

Bill glances over at Holden with a flicker of curiosity in his eyes. 

Holden nods. “My parents were in their fifties when they adopted me. I was fifteen.”

“Holden, I’m sorry.” Bill says, rubbing his fingertips across his forehead in shame. “I didn't realize- … I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay. Talking about the adoption is easy. It’s everything that came before that’s hard.”

Bill doesn’t press for more details, and neither does Holden. He figures they’ve both exposed enough of themselves today. 

After the second shanty town, Holden suggests that they should all be getting back to Papermill so they can have their own dinners. 

The drive back is subdued, no cheerful chattering or singing like this morning’s journey. Everyone is sobered by what they had seen including Bill who Holden discreetly studies for most of the trip home. His earlier concerns that Bill might not be understanding the lesson of this penance fade away; today’s mission revealed that there’s always much more of Bill’s thoughts and emotions lurking beneath the surface, a soft side carefully tucked away and hidden behind a coarse exterior. If only he knew that his comment that he may not be as worthy of heaven as the children just confirms Holden’s belief in his innate goodness even more. 


	4. saints and sinners of lost and stolen items

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy invites Holden to the Tench home for dinner while a relapse sows tension between Holden and Bill.

Bill dreams of Muddytown. It looks different from reality, the rutted streets stripped bare of its children, all of the homes hollowed out and dismantled. He’s running through the lean-to’s with blood on his hands and shirt - David’s blood. There’s a gun in his hand. 

“Get on your knees! Get on your fucking knees!” He can hear himself screaming. 

The man in front of him falls to his knees as ordered, and puts both hands toward the sky. Bill can only see the back of his head and his palms pierced through like the hands of Jesus. 

He presses the barrel of the gun to the slicked, brown hair ruffling in the breeze. His finger hovers over the trigger just before he hears it - low singing.  _ This is my father’s world; and to my listening ears all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres …  _

In the dream, Holden turns just before Bill pulls the trigger. The blast jolts him awake, and his ears are ringing as if a weapon had actually discharged beside his head. 

Scarce moonlight seeps past the curtains of the bedroom to force him back into reality, but the nightmare hangs on. His limbs are shaking as he climbs out of bed, leaving behind a sweat-soaked pillow and Nancy’s disgruntled murmuring. 

“Sorry. Go back to sleep.” He tells her. 

Slipping out of the bedroom, he goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. And he’s weak - fucking weak - as he quickly exchanges the water for his flask. He drinks it all in a few minutes, and it’s just enough to take the edge off. Just enough to make his chest burn hotter with gin than with tears. 

Sitting at the kitchen table, he rubs his hands over his eyes and tries to dispel the vivid image from his mind. Why was he shooting Holden in his dreams? Why was it Holden and not someone else? 

Eventually, Bill goes back to bed, but he sleeps fitfully for the rest of the night. He wakes in the morning with a dreadful weight on his chest. It’s Sunday Mass, and he has a whole list of sins he should confess to including one he’d tried his hardest not to commit. 

Bill can hardly look up at the pulpit for most of the sermon, but he can feel Holden’s gaze burning into him from across the auditorium. It’s as if he has some supernatural sense to parse the truth from Bill’s reticence and aversion.  _ He must already know,  _ Bill thinks. The thought aches more than the numerous times Nancy has argued with him over the drinking. 

He isn’t alone in his struggle. Hannah, who had skipped out on the last two weeks, showed up with Brian this morning. When Holden reads from the book of Luke on the Prodigal Son’s return home, she bursts into tears, and after communion, she bolts for the door. 

“I’m going to go see if she’s okay.” Nancy says, worriedly. 

“Okay.”

“You’re going to confession again?” She asks as he angles in that direction. 

“Yes.”

“Okay.” A faint smile curls her mouth, “Meet me out by the car, then?”

He nods. 

She leaves the church on Hannah’s heels, and Bill sits down in the back pew to wait for the confession line to dwindle. 

He doesn’t know why, but he despises the thought of having to go into the booth anywhere but last. Maybe someone might hear him from the other side of the door. Maybe his words would blend in with the rest of the parishioners, and Holden’s attention wouldn’t be fully fixed on him. All selfish reasons. 

_ Selfishness,  _ Bill thinks, ruefully.  _ Holden might have to beat that one out of him with a stick because visiting the poor and saying a few Hail Marys just won’t cut it.  _

When the last congregant leaves the confessional, Holden steps out of his side of the booth. 

“Bill.”

“Father.” 

Holden’s mouth twitches with a smile. “How are you this morning?”

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“Sorry to hear that. Something weighing on your mind?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“What about last week’s confession? Most of my parishioners aren’t inclined to visit the confessional again so soon.” 

“Are you turning me away?”

“Of course not. Just know that once you confess a sin, it’s forgiven forever.”

“Even if I’ve committed the same sin again?”

“No. If you’ve committed it willfully and intentionally, then you should confess it and pray to God for his grace and assistance.” 

“I thought you’d say that.” 

Holden smiles, softly. “I can tell you think that confessing last week availed you nothing, but I was there. I saw you serve those poor folks in the shantytowns, and I know you were thinking on the Beatitudes like I suggested.”

“Maybe some of us require more than a few Hail Marys and passages of scripture.” 

“Perhaps.” Holden waves for Bill to follow him to confessional, “Come, then, my child. I never turn away any of my flock who want to confess.” 

Bill draws in a deep breath before ducking inside. He pulls the door shut behind him, and exhales into the warm darkness. It smells of pine and finishing wax inside, and there’s something soothing, like the womb, about the contained shadows. Still, his stomach turns. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a week since I last confessed.” The words come easier this time, but he nearly forgets to make the sign of the cross. 

Holden is quiet from the other side of the curtain, waiting on him to continue. 

“I confess again to the sins of lying and anger.” Bill whispers. 

These are easy to confess because he’s been living with them for some time, because it’s what Holden expects of him. Because it’s not as humiliating as being a drunk who can’t control himself. 

“Your voice is trembling.” Holden murmurs, “Why do you fear God so much, child? He is faithful and just to forgive us if we confess our sins.”

“Forgive me, Father.” Bill folds his hands tightly together in front of him and presses his forehead to his knuckles. 

_ It’s not God I fear.  _ The words crawl up his soured belly and throat, but he swallows them back down hard. 

“It’s all right.” Holden replies, “I promise that you will feel unburdened once you admit these sins to God. Let the Holy Spirit guide your words.”

Bill draws in a steadying breath. He presses his eyes shut, feeling his face grow hot. 

“I’m also guilty of … of drinking.”

Holden is silent, quietly considering the admission. 

“Not much.” Bill adds, quickly. “A flask, but I- … I meant not to this week. So, um … yeah. That’s all I can remember. I’m sorry for these and all my sins.” 

“It’s good that you’ve confessed it.” Holden says. Another beat of concentrated silence before he clears his throat, “You may say seven Hail Marys for the anger and the lying. For the drinking, Bill, you must simply pray to God daily for strength. Only by letting his grace fully into your heart can you conquer this problem.”

Bill frowns deeply at this response. He’s too surprised by the clement nature of the penance to do anything other than finish the confession with a prayer of contrition, but by the time they both step out of the booth, his thoughts are racing. 

He confronts Holden just outside the confessional. “So, that’s it?” 

“What do you mean?”

“That’s it? Pray to God?” Bill asks, his voice rising as shame and anger flood his chest. “What kind of a penance is that?”

“Bill, I am not here to punish you.”

“Well maybe you should.”

They gaze quietly at each other, breaths echoing in the hollow silence of the church’s domed ceiling as the retort falls heavily between them. 

Finally, Holden lifts his chin. “I’ve given you the penance I think fits your situation and your heart best. You can’t change it simply because you’re upset and humiliated with yourself.”

Bill glances away, his face flushing hot even as he mutters, “That’s not it. It’s just … you know now what it looks like when I’m drunk. It’s going to take a lot more than praying to God to fix that.”

“I did see you. I saw someone who needed help so I offered my help. And despite what you think, I believe I’ve already seen improvement.”

Bill watches with mounting disbelief as Holden nudges aside the front folds of his robe to extract the St. Anthony pendant from within. He slips it off over his head, and takes Bill’s hand in his own. Pressing the medallion into Bill’s palm, he nudges Bill’s fingers closed over it. 

“I want you to have this.” Holden says, softly. 

“What? Why?” Bill asks, gazing down at their joined hands. 

“Because you need it more than I do.” 

Bill slowly lifts his gaze to Holden’s, almost flinching beneath the compassion and gentility resting in their blue depths. 

“I can’t accept this.” Bill whispers, choked, pushing the pendant back toward Holden’s fingers. 

“Yes, you can. I insist.”

Holden leaves St. Anthony in Bill’s hands, and departs the chapel in the swishing drape of robes and quiet, yet hurried footfalls. 

^^^

Bill doesn’t go to confession again for three weeks. 

He wakes up every morning thinking of David and Tucker, Wopsononock Mountain, the bodies of the butchered Shaw family, and Speck’s cold, dead eyes. He has a lot of dreams, or rather nightmares - images of the Shaw mansion and the cabin, Muddytown, the graveyard at St. Stephens, and an apple tree where a rabid possum is buried. Sometimes, Holden shows up, and sings the sweet notes of “This is My Father’s World.” Bill wishes he would, for once, sing something different. 

But his dreams don’t change, and neither does his pining to waste away his sorrows in drink. When he dips into his stash again, he does pray. Clutching the Saint Anthony pendant to his chest, he prays “God, please help me,” but it doesn’t help as Holden insisted it would. The thought of facing him again, even with a curtain between them, is unbearable.

Unaware of the disagreement - or maybe  _ too  _ aware - Nancy invites Holden over for dinner on a Thursday evening. She prepares meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and brussel sprouts, the nicest dinner she can put together on their tight budget. 

Jim is finishing up yard work when Holden walks down the driveway. Bill hears Holden greet Jim just below the porch, and steps outside to see the two men conversing about Jim’s position on the property. 

“Father,” Bill says when Holden notices him standing on the porch. 

“Hello, Bill.” 

They share a terse gaze before Jim clears his throat, and offers a handshake. “It was lovely to meet you, Father.”

“You as well, Jim.”

“I’m off for the night.” Jim says to Bill. 

“Nancy has your pay inside.” 

Jim jogs up the steps past Bill, and Holden follows at a slower pace. 

“He’s a nice man.” Holden says, demurely. 

“Yeah, a hard worker, too. It’s difficult to find that sometimes.”

“Some people around here might not want to hire a colored man.”

“I’m not one of those people. Neither is Nancy. She’s the one who hired him to help out around here while I was gone.”

“But you’re back now.”

Bill shrugs. “We decided to keep him on. It’s hard to find work these days. I couldn’t turn him out.”

“Was that before or after our little trip?” Holden asks, a smile tugging at his mouth. 

“After.” Bill mutters. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

He tries to be annoyed with Holden’s giddy expression. So the penance worked. That one did. _Beginner’s luck,_ Bill thinks. _It’s nothing to get excited over._ _He's known Jim and his family for years._

After they’re gathered around the table, Holden insists on the three of them joining hands while he says grace. Bill presses his eyes shut and holds his breath through the length of the prayer, doing his best to ignore how warm and gentle Holden’s hand is wrapped around his own. He exhales slowly when they break apart with a chorused “amen,” and reaches for his fork. 

“Just a minute.” Nancy says, “Before we dig in, I’d like to say something.” 

Bill sighs, but Holden looks at her attentively. “Of course.”

“I wanted to tell you that I invited you here to have dinner with us tonight as a thank you.” Nancy says, “From both of us.”

Bill casts her a querying gaze to which she responds with a pointed glare. 

“I know Bill doesn’t always say what he’s thinking or feeling, but I know he agrees with me.” She says firmly, softening her gaze when she turns back to Holden. “You’ve been a timely help during this dark period in our lives. A blessing. Truly.”

“Well, thank you, Nancy.” Holden says, dipping his head. “But it’s important to my own soul work to help those around me, especially my congregants.”

“Soul work.” Nancy says, her smile widening. “I love that.”

“The work is inevitable and eternal.” 

“There he goes, spouting off poetry again.” Bill says, shaking his head. 

“Again?” Nancy asks. 

“Bill had some fever dreams the night he stayed with me.” Holden says, shifting a surreptitious smirk to Bill. “I think I sound more eloquent to the delirious.”

Nancy laughs, and so does Holden. Bill tries to laugh, but the sound gets tangled up in his throat. He wants to hate Holden for being so kind, and funny, and charming, but it’s as if the absence of the last three weeks has only intensified his longing. Now that they’re physically close to one another again, it feels impossible to tear himself away. 

He sits there for the rest of the evening, watching Holden’s gestures, expressions, laughter, and joking, entranced; underneath, disgusted with himself. For a man who has seen war and cruelty, who has been hardened by the darkest sides of humanity, he’s terribly easy. 

Nancy all but chases them out of the kitchen so that she can clean up once they finish eating. Bill takes them out onto the back porch where a wicker swing bolted to the overhang offers a relaxing view of the back yard with it’s flourishing vegetable garden and the cornfield glowing amber and green below a melting sunset. 

“You have a lovely home here.” Holden says as they sit down next to one another on the porch swing. 

“Yeah, I can’t complain.” Bill says, slipping his arm across the back of the swing. His fingers brush against the fabric of Holden’s shirt, and it makes his heart race. “Although this view would be better with a cold beer.”

Holden casts him a horrified gaze. 

“I’m kidding.”

“You know what I think?” Holden says, smiling coyly. “Perhaps it's time you came back to confession.”

Bill’s neck stiffens, and he shifts his gaze back to the corn stalks swaying beneath the sultry breeze. 

“Well, Father, you haven’t exactly held up your end of the deal.”

“Deal?”

“That night you took care of me, you said that if I came to confession I might get to know what exactly it is that you’ve seen. The darkness of human nature you talked about.” 

Holden sighs, softly. “Bill, I shouldn’t have said that. It was wrong of me, and believe me, I did my penance for it.”

Bill peeks back over at him, and sees Holden’s mouth quiver. 

“Confession is absolutely for the sinner alone.” Holden continues, shaking his head. “Not for the priest. Not for me. I’m just a vessel of God, a-”

“But you get something out of it, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just told Nancy that your job as a priest is integral to your soul.”

“It is. Helping people and listening to them is. Taking their sins, passing them on to God.”

“You make it sound romantic.”

“It isn’t, trust me. Sometimes, it’s incredibly painful.”

Bill frowns at the tension that’s crept in Holden’s voice. He shifts carefully in the swing to get a better view of his soft profile, lit up in the sunset glow.

“Believe me when I say I have no ulterior motive for urging you to come back to confession.” Holden says, turning his head to catch Bill’s focused stare. 

Bill looks at his lap, and sees Holden’s hand creeping over to touch his knee. It feels like a low burning, his skin peeling back so that Holden can caress bone; but he doesn’t move. 

“I pray for you every night.” Holden whispers, “Lastly, after everyone and anyone else. I think of you, and I pray that you are well, that you aren’t making yourself suffer too terribly.”

Suddenly, Bill finds it hard to breathe. He looks up into Holden’s shimmering eyes. 

“Thank you. I don’t deserve it, Father.” He whispers, haltingly. 

“It’s not about deserving. It’s about need. And please, stop calling me that.” Holden says, abruptly rising to his feet. 

Bill curls his hand into a fist against the empty back paneling of the seat that Holden had just vacated. 

“Why does it bother you so much? It’s your title.”

“Right now I’m just a friend.” Holden says, tucking his hands into his pockets as he gazes out into the field. 

“Then as a friend, can I tell you that my priest’s last penance didn’t work?” Bill says, suddenly flush with frustration - with himself and Holden’s avoidance. “I got drunk as hell last weekend.”

Holden turns sharply, his eyes flaring with pain and anger. “Bill-”

“I prayed while it was happening, and it didn’t do shit.”

“Please don’t say these things to me.”

The rusty hinge on the back screen door squeals loudly as Nancy comes out onto the porch and interrupts the argument from boiling over. 

“I was just coming out to see if you two wanted some ice tea or lemonade.” Nancy says, her gaze shifting intently between them as if she can sense the tension in the air. 

“No, thank you.” Holden says, “I actually think I’m going to be heading home now.”

“Let me drive you back to the parsonage.” Bill says, his chest sinking with self-disgust. 

Holden gazes coolly at him, and Bill knows he can see that he wants to apologize. But he shakes his head. “No, but thank you. I like to walk. It clears my mind.”

Bill lowers his head, squeezing his hands into fists at his sides. If Nancy wasn’t standing right in front of them, he might be throwing himself to his knees at Holden’s feet.  _ Father, forgive me. I’ve sinned. I’ve sinned.  _

“Okay.” Nancy says, “Thank you for coming. It was lovely to have you.”

“Dinner was delicious.” Holden says. He gives Nancy a brief hug before casting Bill a detached nod. “Goodnight, Bill.”

Once he’s gone, Nancy joins Bill at the edge of the porch, and tucks herself under his arm. 

“I thought that went well.” She whispers. 

“Yeah.”

She has a habit of saying one thing and meaning something else. So does he. Maybe she learned it from him, and now Holden is learning it too. Bill wishes they would all just say what they meant one time, but the cost of honesty might be far too high. 

^^^

The Saturday after the dinner at the Tench home, Holden is surprised to hear a car in the church parking lot and look out the window to see Bill walking across the cemetery to David's grave. When he first returned from Pennsylvania, he was out there every week, sometimes more than once a week, but lately his attendance at his friend's burial spot has been as lax as his confessions. 

For a long moment, Bill stands over the grave with hat between his hands and his head down. Holden can see his mouth moving. His shoulders droop as if crushed beneath a cumbersome burden. Guilty of so much, ashamed with himself, drowning in it. 

Despite Holden’s frustration, his heart longs to reach out and soothe that hurt, but more so to uncover the carefully concealed truth, the root of it all. 

He watches Bill stand over the grave for ten minutes before Bill sits down in the grass, and pulls a flask out his jacket’s breast pocket. He takes a sip before taking something else out of his trouser pocket. He turns it over in his hand for a moment, then crawls forward to dig a hole just below David’s gravestone. As the object tumbles from his palm into the shallow hole, Holden recognizes it as the St. Anthony necklace he had gifted to Bill a month ago. 

Slipping on his shoes, Holden leaves the parsonage, and walks past the cemetery gate. Bill doesn’t recognize his presence until he’s no more than five feet off. 

“Father,” He says, his voice taut and his gaze guarded. 

Holden clenches his jaw at the strictly formal address that he’s worked for years to attain, that demands respect. He’s never wanted to hear someone else say his name rather than the honorific so badly. 

“I hope I’m not disturbing you.” Holden says, tucking anxious hands in his pockets. 

Bill shakes his head, silently, and turns his gaze back to the grave. Grass is beginning to grow over the broken dirt, the earth taking David’s coffin in and resolving back into nature. 

“You gave away my gift.” Holden murmurs. 

“What, are you spying on me?”

“It’s difficult to not see from my window.”

Bill scoffs, “It was a gift so why do you care what I do with it?”

“David’s soul is with God now. He isn’t lost.”

“If you just came out here to judge me then maybe you should go back inside.”

“No, of course not. I apologize.”

Bill sighs, and rubs a hand over his face. He lifts the flask to his mouth again, unabashed in his drinking in front of a clergyman. 

Holden wants to shake him by the collar. Instead, he sits down Indian-style on the grass beside him. His usual Biblical pieces of advice that he gives parishioners don’t apply in this scenario. He doesn’t know the entire truth to even try offering anecdotes; and after all his recent attempts to lead Bill blindly forward, Bill has made it clear he doesn't want to hear it. 

“On my way home from work yesterday, I stopped at the shop for some cigarettes.” Bill says, beginning abruptly with a calm tone. 

Holden watches his profile, silver-edged by moonlight, surprised yet pleased with this openness. 

“Some man I didn’t even know stopped and recognized me at the counter. From the papers.” Bill continues.

“What did he say?”

“He wanted to shake my hand.”

“Because of Altoona.”

“Yeah.” Bill says, shaking his head. “I wish everyone would stop calling me a fucking hero like I did something worthy of sainthood.”

“I’ve read the papers, too. By all accounts, you got the bad guy.”

Bill’s mouth tugs in a grim smile. “The bad guy. People always want to believe the world is black and white. They draw their little lines and decide which side to stand on - and then they decide which side is good and which is bad. If only they knew what really happened on that mountain, they wouldn’t be so certain. They wouldn't think I was worthy of any kind of praise. But everyone who knows the truth doesn’t matter anymore because they’re dead and buried, or never coming back. Everyone except me, and I’m going to take it to my grave just the same as them.” 

“Bill, this may be something for the confessional.”

“Very sly, Father Ford.” Bill says, conjuring a casual tone. His eyes are glazed and half-drunk in the moonlight as he waves a finger at Holden’s perturbed expression. “Getting me to open up just to persuade me into coming back to confession.”

“It’s nothing to make light of.” Holden says, a frown growing on his brow, “If it’s a mortal sin that could put your very soul in jeopardy then it’s my job as a priest to urge you to confess it. By allowing darkness into your life, you open yourself up to all kinds of evil.”

“Then I’m damned, Father.” Bill says, quietly, leaning closer until their faces are no more than three inches apart, and Holden can smell the alcohol on his breath, “You can’t save me.”

Holden blinks, sudden tears springing to his eyes. He can’t bear the thought of Bill’s soul going into the blackness of eternity chained by his mistakes - that once this life is over, they will never see one another again. It only makes this temporal moment more visceral, the unbidden desire to be close to Bill, to touch him, to feel him in a way he hasn’t felt another person in a very long time that much more acute. 

“You think that.” Holden says, fiercely. “But it doesn’t stop me from trying.” 

Surprise registers in Bill’s eyes. “Calm down. I was just kidding.”

“Were you?”

“Well, I’m a little drunk.” Bill says, lifting the flask to his mouth again. “And a bit of a jerk - your words not mine.”

Sudden frustration floods Holden’s veins, and he can’t stand to watch Bill take one more sip of poisonous liquor. He snatches the flask out of Bill’s hand just before it touches his lips. 

“Hey-” Bill begins to protest, his brows furling with anger. 

He swipes for the flask, but his reflexes are sluggish with gin. Holden hurls it into the treeline where it lands with a subdued clatter of stainless steel against bark. 

Bill stares at the shadowy mass of foliage where his flask disappeared with his mouth slipping partially open. When his gaze finally shifts back to Holden, he gives a choked laugh, “So you’re taking matters out of God’s hands and into your own now, huh?”

“Sometimes God wants you to help yourself. Do you really want to change, Bill? Do you want to stop drinking? Stop tempting yourself by carrying that thing around and setting yourself up for failure. Then try praying to God for strength.”

Bill’s mouth purses. Holden can see him flushing even in the dim starlight. 

“Don’t try to tell me I’m wrong again.” Holden says, softening his tone. “Do you want to stop or not?”

Bill sighs, and scrapes a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, I guess - I want … I want to be the person everyone thinks I am. A good husband, a good agent, a good man. Maybe I’m not as strong as I’d hoped.”

“You are strong.” Holden says, tentatively reaching over to touch the back of Bill’s hand. His knuckles are knotted and course from using them in too many fights. “But you must do it for yourself and not anyone else. Least of all me.”

Bill is staring down at their connected hands, not moving. 

Holden forces himself to pull his fingers away, but Bill’s hand catches his wrist before it can escape. His grip is strong, but not rough as his other hand gently uncurls Holden’s fingers to expose the soft stretch of his palm. His thumb drags across the tender, thin skin along the center crease of Holden’s hand, inciting a low tingle and a hum of awful desire deep in Holden’s belly. 

“I had a dream about you.” Bill whispers, his thumb stroking rhythmically. 

Every muscle in Holden’s body clenches against the gentle caress, the breath arresting in his lungs.

“Your hands were bleeding like Christ.” Bill says, “What do you think that meant?”

Holden swallows hard, and tries to retract his hand. Bill’s fingers tighten around his wrist, thumb hard on his thumping pulse.

“Bill, that’s blasphemy.” 

Bill looks up from Holden’s palm. In the pewter light, his eyes are like two, gray moonbeams. “I suppose that’s something else for confession tomorrow.”

Holden sits paralyzed in the grass as Bill climbs to his feet, and steadies his slightly inebriated swaying. His wrist and palm are buzzing with the ghost impression of contact that feels like fire slipping down into his bones. 

He gathers himself as Bill trudges across the cemetery towards his car. Springing to his feet, he whirls around to call after him, “Do you mean that?”

Bill turns on his heel for just a moment to cast Holden an aloof smile before he slips past the gate. A few moments later, he’s behind the wheel of his car, pulling away. 

Holden has the sense to say a quiet prayer for his safety on the road, but not much more to will his mind back into control over his body. He only knows that he’s in trouble; he’d waded into deep, swallowing waters without realizing it, and now there’s no turning back - only pushing his way forward through the temptations and the pain until he emerges on the other side raw and tormented, but perhaps victorious.

^^^

Holden dreams of Bill, too. No sacrilegious imagery of bleeding palms, but trespasses much more vile and debased. 

It always begins innocuously within the serene walls of St. Stephen’s or the darkness of a confessional box. Bill’s voice says things he wants to hear but doesn’t want to admit he enjoys - dark things, bad things, things that break Holden’s once stoic oath of celibacy. But the torture doesn’t end there. Sometimes Bill is sliding into the priest’s side of the confessional, and their bodies are trapped close together. Sometimes it’s just the heavy weight of his body and the way he smells of earth and pine and rain. Sometimes, his hands are crawling beneath Holden’s robes, fingers plying the white collar from his throat to leave bruising kisses in its place with his fierce, hard mouth. 

The dreams had begun somewhere in that stretch of weeks when Bill wasn’t coming to confession. Meeting him behind the curtain solidified that vision of their relationship being pastoral and benign, a priest and his parishioner, but the terrible, aching absence of him had forced Holden’s mind to conjure the version his weak, willing flesh truly wants. 

Just hours after Bill left the cemetery, Holden wakes from one such dream with his nightclothes adhering to his body from sweat and his cock throbbing with the most persistent, rock hard erection he’s felt in years. 

He rolls around in bed trying to ignore it’s presence for more than fifteen minutes before, perspiring and worked over, he crawls miserably from the sheets to strip out of his damp gown. Staggering to the kitchen, he gets a glass of water to calm himself, but the brush of air against his naked skin only seems to encourage the need running roughshod across his delicate, unaccustomed groin. 

His fingers go to his skin, hesitantly. Hunched over the edge of the sink, he nearly cries when his touch grazes like a branding iron across his swollen cock. The slightest caress reveals how hard he is, and encourages a responding twitch that begins somewhere deep in his belly. He yanks his hand away, and breathes hard through his nostrils, crossing himself desperately.

“Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” He whispers, haltingly, pressing his eyes shut against his aching body while the prayer arrives naturally in his throat, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil … Deliver us from evil. Deliver us from evil.”

It’s no use. 

He stands shuddering in the kitchen for as long as it takes him to recite the Lord’s Prayer five times, but his untouched, unloved body doesn’t much care for purity or celibacy with the memory of Bill’s eyes burning into him, hand gripping his wrist with the intention of much more. 

Holden marches past the door that connects the parsonage to the church, and slips down the silent, dark hallway to his office located behind the sanctuary. He opens the doors of the tall, cherrywood cabinet that lines the wall to the left of his desk. Through the stained glass window, moonlight stretches in rainbow colors to illuminate varying instruments of wood and leather, an array of penance. 

He draws in a deep, shaking breath, and picks one out. 


	5. between hell and all mankind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill gets a glimpse into Holden's search for sainthood, and a prospective partnership with Wendy offers a chance at redemption.

On Sunday, Hannah Ashford is the penultimate penitent at the confessional box. She confesses a number of things that Holden doesn’t necessarily view as terrible sins: questioning God’s wisdom, not attending church, not praying, not trusting. He gives her the lightest penance he can without feeling he’s violated his role as a priest, and finishes the confession by adding an additional assignment - giving herself time to grieve and rest. 

They meet outside of the confessional, and she kisses the back of his hand with trembling lips. He whispers something about God being with her, but his gaze gets distracted by Bill lingering near the back pew, twisting the brim of his hat between his hands. Suddenly, the weight of his robes against his back is too raw and tender to bear. 

When Hannah leaves, Bill crosses the auditorium, his footfalls echoing against the stone floor. They face each other quietly, the threads of memory of last night’s graveside conversation weaving tension through the air between them.

Holden’s stomach turns with an exhilarated and nauseated jolt. In the throes of last night’s agony, he’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t allow his longing to overcome him ever again, but it seems that the cruelly exacted penance hasn’t quite yet affirmed an association between Bill and pain in his mind. 

“I thought you might be joking again when you said you would be here today.” Holden says, finally, searching for a way to sound both calm and aloof. 

Bill’s mouth pinches with a shamed grimace. “Yeah. Look, I’m not proud of myself.”

“I know. But you’re where you should be.” 

Bill gives a clipped nod. “Let’s do this.”

Holden ducks into the confessional, and pulls the door shut. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” Bill’s voice is low and raspy, holding a faint tremor. “It’s been … three- four? - weeks since my last confession?”

“I can tell you’re troubled, my child. Tell me what’s on your heart.”

You know, Father. The lying, the anger, the drinking, the … Ah, all the inadequacies that I can’t seem to shore up no matter how hard I try.”

“You’ve confessed to these sins many times. I wonder if there isn’t a root cause to all of it? A larger sin lying beneath the surface that you’ve yet to admit to not only God, but to yourself.”

Holden’s speculation is met with thick silence that’s only broken by the muted shudder of Bill’s breathing. 

“Is it a sin to hate yourself?” Bill murmurs, at length. “To wonder if you’re doing the world any good by walking on it?”

“Maybe not a sin so much as a human weakness.” Holden says, “The voice of Satan whispering in your ear, and asking you to give up. That’s what evil wants, Bill. For you to give up.”

Bill gives a quiet, choked laugh. “Remember that line we talked about yesterday?”

“The line between good and evil?”

“Yeah. I’m never quite sure which side I’m on, or if I’m always just standing on the gray area in between.”

“Do you want to do good? Seek God?”

“Yes. More than anything.”

“Then you’re walking in the right direction. At some point, you have to give up faith in yourself and transfer it to God. Trust Him to carry you the rest of the way.” 

“You’re right, Father, as always.” 

Holden purses his lips as the statement lashes across his conscience, his already wounded body. 

“Do you have anything else to confess?” He asks, sliding his fingers beneath his robe to locate the rosary around his neck. He rubs his fingers over it for strength. 

“I suppose I shouldn’t forget blasphemy.” Bill says, his tone taking on a rueful note. “I’m not sure, though. Does it classify as a sin if it was in a dream?”

“No, sin is about intention.” Holden says, his throat flushing hot at the memory of Bill’s hands on his wrist. “I was a bit harsh last night.”

“Oh, good. That would’ve sent me to Purgatory for good, huh?”

“That isn't something to joke about.” Holden says, sharply. 

“Of course not. Forgive me, Father. That’s the last thing I can remember. I’m sorry for these, and all my sins.”

Holden presses his fingertips to the bridge of his nose to suppress the frustration and longing raking across his frayed nerves. He tries to think logically, see the divine intervention of what penance to offer a parishioner behind his eyelids. Because that’s all Bill is to him. A member of his church. A part of him wants to give Bill ten prayers of the entire Rosary every day for the rest of the week for the torture he’s unwittingly putting Holden through, but he can’t violate his priestly vows any further. He’s done enough damage. 

“That bad, huh?” Bill asks, his anxious tone cutting past the dull roar of Holden’s thoughts. 

“One Our Father for the lying and the drinking.” Holden says, “For your questions about how you value yourself, I’d like you to read I John chapter four. I think you will find some comfort there.”

“Yes, Father.”

After the prayer of contrition and Holden’s blessings, they meet outside the booth. Bill’s eyes trap Holden down, his feet bolted to the floor as Bill moves closer. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Holden says, managing a calm smile.

Bill shifts nervously from one foot to the other. “Can I say something to you as a friend, not a priest?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I want you to know that I’m going to try harder. With the drinking.”

Despite Holden’s sleepless irritation, he can’t help the warmth that filters into his chest with this statement. 

“That’s wonderful.” He says, “I believe you can do it.”

“Well, I’ve disappointed myself - and other people - a lot. You’re the only person since I came back from Wopsononock that made me feel like I should give it more effort.”

Holden swallows hard as Bill puts a hand on his arm, gives it a gentle squeeze, and then gathers himself with a deep breath. 

“See you around.” He says, offering Holden a faint smile. 

He turns to leave, putting his hat back on before he reaches the front doors.

Holden is mute and paralyzed as he watches him go. Resplendent, midday sunlight stretches in a white pillar across the stone floor, momentarily blocked by his shadow, before he exits. The door swings in his wake, leaving behind that flash of illumination until it slams shut behind him, and Holden is alone in silence and dim candlelight. 

^^^

I John 4 begins like this: _ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.  _ As Holden suggested, the passage is full of faith affirming messages of the people’s place in God’s kingdom and under His grace. It’s a phrase he’s heard many times from his childhood days growing up in an Evangelical church and later from Nancy and Father Jacobsen. 

The part that Father Jacobsen always left out comes a little later:  _ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.  _

Bill’s attention keeps going back to that verse more than any of the others.  _ Love is of God. _ It’s a simple, positive statement, yet it undermines everything that Holden was trying to teach him with this assignment. 

He’s an aberration. A mistake. He’s always thought so deep in his gut where the guilt often writhes like tangled snakes. Surely the love that Saint John is speaking of doesn’t apply to him or his predilections. 

The thought plagues him each day he opens his Bible to that chapter as Holden had directed. He's itching to be done with the penance by the time he and Nancy attend Mass the following Sunday, just another frisson of guilt cutting through him along with all the rest. He's supposed to love God's word even if he doesn't understand it. Nancy always says,  _ In time it will make sense.  _ Bill finds it hard to agree since everything he's done in life, no matter the good intent of it, seems to lie in direct conflict with the Bible.

Nancy had planned to have lunch in town with some friends after the service, leaving him and Holden ample time in the confessional. Despite Holden's previous remark about Bill's confessions, which are becoming identical and routine, Bill keeps his true thoughts to himself until Holden finishes with the blessing. 

Outside of the confessional, Bill says, "Are you busy this afternoon?" 

"Nothing pressing." 

"I wondered if you might have some time for us to talk." 

"Talk?" Holden echoes, defensiveness rippling beneath his cordial tone. Even though Bill apologized, he's been aloof ever since that dinner two weeks ago.

"I have some questions about the passage you gave me last week." 

Holden seems to relax. "All right. Let's go to my office." 

Bill follows him to the front of the chapel and down the side hallway to the office.

It looks to him as if Holden had redecorated from the days of Father Jacobsen. There's artifacts and trinkets that don't look American on the shelves, and a modern expressionist painting of Christ and the disciples inhabits the wall opposite the desk. The stained glass window artfully crafted into the image of Jesus carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders casts Holden in a luminescent yellow glow as he sits down and motions for Bill to take the chair across from him. 

"So, I John." He says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. 

"I John." Bill echoes, "I'm not sure I got out of it what you intended."

“I've always found it to be one of the most reassuring passages in the Word of God." Holden says, his head cocking as he studies Bill's tense demeanor. "What exactly did you get from it that wasn't?”

“Love.”

"Love?" 

Bill nods, and looks away from Holden’s intent, deciphering gaze. He feels like it can see to the back of his skull, all the things he’s tried to hide. 

“'Everyone that loves is born of God.' I've done a lot of wrong. I don't know that I've ever loved anyone the way I can, or should, or need to. I feel like I've done it all wrong.” 

“How so?” 

Bill momentarily questions this foray into honesty. He can't tell Holden everything, not without making it brutally clear that he truly is condemned to Hell, his soul just in jeopardy as Holden feared in the cemetery.

“Bill,” Holden says, gently, bringing Bill's gaze up from his lap. “I understand what it's like when you love someone and you think you've messed everything up. It doesn't mean that love was entirely wrong or misplaced.”

“You know what it's like? A priest?” Bill asks, trying not to sound derisive. He can't imagine Holden touching anyone willingly, let alone letting anyone touch him - debasing himself to the point of Bill's own actions and thoughts. 

"There's many different types of love. Not just romantic." Holden says, calmly, but there's a flinch behind his eyes that he can't hide. 

“But as a priest, you’re supposed to love one thing. God.”

“I’ve had a life outside this parish. And the church. Some of it led me here directly.”

“Well, you’re not anything like any priest I’ve ever met, that’s for sure.” He says, rising from his chair to scrutinize the works of brass, metal, and wood decorating the spaces in between the volumes on the bookshelf. “Where did you get all of this stuff?”

“Mission work during seminary.” Holden says, “I’ve been all over. South America, the Caribbean, Europe.”

“Impressive.” 

“I didn’t do it to impress. I did it to help those less fortunate than me.” 

Holden joins Bill by the bookshelf. His profile is relaxed again, almost fond as he runs his fingertips across a particular object, three pieces of wiring fashioned into stick figures holding hands and mounted on a flat piece of wood.

“In the end, they helped me more than I helped them.” He adds, his tone growing distant and tender. “A little boy in Jamaica made this for me. I’ve carried it with me ever since to remind myself of what I learned there. Some of those people who had nothing to eat at dinner led richer lives than I did until that point.”

“How so?”

“The love and joy they had for life and their families. It was so pure - so unadulterated by greed or malice. I remember sitting in the sand and looking out at the bluest water you can imagine, listening to the crash of the tide and thinking:  _ It all comes back to love in the end _ . It’s something I still believe in five years later.” 

“I suppose it's hard for me to share that sentiment after some of the things I saw in Europe fifteen years ago.”

“Maybe you weren’t looking in the right places.”

“The country was torn apart. War. Famine. Death.” Bill says, shaking his head. “There wasn’t any joy there, just suffering.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I saw people suffer, but it only made me more intent on pursuing priesthood. Everyone I saw … I couldn’t stand the thought of their souls venturing into eternity and the flames of Purgatory. I thought if I could stand between them and damnation, I might be able to make a difference.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do with me? Stand between me and Hell?”

Holden’s mouth curls with a faint smile. “I try to offer myself before God in place of all my parishioners.”

“Oh, I see. I felt special for a minute.” 

Holden’s brows flicker with muted tension just as Bill moves past him to the cherry wood cabinet standing against the adjacent wall. 

“What’s in here? More worldwide artifacts?” He asks, shooting a glance over his shoulder as he grasps the brass handle. 

“No, no, it’s-” Holden stammers as Bill pulls the door open. 

Bill frowns at his blanching cheeks just before he turns to see the display of sleek wooden canes and leather whips arranged in a uniform row across the width of the cabinet. It’s a collection, different sizes, lengths, and types of wood, all of them polished and obviously well cared for despite their brutal purposes. 

“Not exactly.” Holden finishes, softly. 

Bill stares at the instruments, mouth slipping open. His chest throbs with a mix of horror and twisted intrigue. He can’t stop the image that springs clearly into his mind of Holden wielding the cane over some shuddering individual’s bare skin. In a blink, he forces away the next thought -  _ his skin.  _

Bill clears his throat, and tries not to sound inordinately curious, “This is quite a collection. Do they serve any … functional purposes?”

“Yes.” Holden says, stiffly.

“For who?”

Holden lifts his chin. “Anyone who needs them.”

“What kind of trespass would require this kind of punishment?” Bill asks, intently, glancing between the thin strips of leather dangling from one of the whips and Holden’s rosy cheeks. “I’ve always found your penances to be pretty merciful.”

“I agree. It’s a little old-fashioned, a little-”

Old Testament?”

“Yes. A bit. But sometimes a harsher hand is required, especially with … repeat offenses.”

Bill feels his face growing hot, his belly churning with a confusing clash of disgust and excitement. How many sins has Holden already seen him repeat? Two, three? And there’s so many more he doesn’t know about. 

“How many times does someone have to repeat a sin to earn a caning?” He asks. 

“Like I said, sin is about intention.” Holden says, swiftly crossing the room to ease the cabinet doors shut over the display of instruments. “Committing a sin knowingly and brazenly in the face of God is far worse than simple human error or a mistake made with the best of intentions.”

Bill’s gaze hangs onto the fine details of Holden’s firmly pursed lips and blatantly blushing cheeks before he glances down at his hands laid flat against the cabinet door. His pale fingers are so graceful, nails neat, skin soft and healthy. He hadn’t imagined them facilitating pain until this very moment. 

“You’re not as soft as you look, Father.” He says, quietly. “I was wrong about you.”

Holden glances up at him, eyes growing colder. “Maybe so. There’s a lot about me that doesn’t match how I look, but that’s true of most people, don’t you think?”

“Sure. You wanna know what I really think?”

“What?”

“I think standing between everyone else and Hell must get pretty tiring - a lot harder when you’re holding yourself to a higher standard than the rest of the world. I know I couldn’t do it. I think you’re probably harsher to yourself than anyone else, and that might not be fair.”

“Fair? Bill, some of the greatest saints we pray to today practiced self-mortification. It was evidence of their piety, their absolute dedication to Christ. Their suffering was for the betterment of their souls." 

“Are you trying to be a saint?”

“Hardly. I’m just trying to be a better priest than the man who was here before me.” Holden says, his tone growing defensive. “Someone the people of this town can trust and confide in.”

Bill considers this remark with a narrowed gaze, but he can’t work up a reply before Holden goes back behind his desk and clears his throat, signaling an end to the conversation. 

“We were talking about I John.” He says. 

“Yeah, right.”

“Did you have any more questions?”

Bill can’t think about the Bible anymore. “No. But I’m sure I’ll think of something later.”

“My door is always open.”

“Good to know. Thank you, Father.” 

Bill exits the church at a hurried pace, and doesn’t stop moving until he gets out onto the front steps where the blue of the sky stretches on for miles. All he can think about is how it matches Holden’s eyes, truth and emptiness wrapped up in one soul, another facet of him revealed, this one bleeding and tormented. 

He has spent the weeks since Altoona thinking he deserved something terrible, something painful, something not so removed from the instruments of pain hidden away in Holden’s office; and if he feels so strongly reviled by his own soul, then what secrets must Holden have that could make him turn such a cruel hand on himself? 

^^^

Behind the darkness of Bill’s eyelids, St. Stephen’s Church unfolds in white-washed, stained-glass iridescence. The communion line forms from the altar where Holden stands in robes of white and gold to the front doors where dark clouds and thunder roll across the sky. 

Bill makes it to the front of the line in no time, and finds himself on his knees. Holden’s robe is peeling back, his skin glowing ivory and cream in the dusky candlelight that falls over the auditorium. 

Suddenly, they’re alone. 

Holden’s fingers graze beneath Bill’s chin, tilting his head back, guiding it into submission. He pours wine down Bill’s throat that tastes like nothing, but here, the sensations become intense, knife-edged, on the verge of becoming reality.

Holden draws him closer, whispering, “The body of Christ” just before he puts his hard cock in Bill’s mouth with a sigh of pleasure. 

Bill can feel himself on the edge of orgasm as the ethereal caress stretches on, his focus dipping in and out of the details of deviant, sexual sacrilege. The hovering thought of release aches through the next blurry seconds of feverish dreaming until he ends up on his hands and knees on the hard, wooden steps leading to the podium. 

“Look what you did to yourself, you stupid son of a bitch.” Holden says. 

Then he lashes the whip across Bill’s naked back. 

Bill wakes with a staggered breath, his eyes blinking hard against the clinging haze of the dream. As his limbs crawl into awareness against the slight weight of the bed sheets, he realizes that the throbbing ache between his thighs is more than a part of the dream; it’s real, fierce, and demanding. 

He crawls quickly from the bed where Nancy is sleeping beside him, and drags himself to the bathroom. The bulbs above the sink are far too bright as slaps at the lightswitch and leans his back into the door to push it shut. Pressing his eyes shut against the light and the fiery need racing through his body, he tries to calm himself with deep breaths. 

He’s dreamed of Holden many times, but never like this. Despite his curiosity about the cherrywood cabinet and its contents, he hadn’t expected it to arise in his unconscious mind the way it just had - hotly erotic, awful, and intense. The voice of reason in the back of his mind says he would never dream of wanting that. 

_ But he just did.  _

Bill leans over to the sink to splash his face with cold water. When he lifts his head and looks at himself in the mirror, he wants nothing more than to dig his flask out of the woods and turn back to alcohol to momentarily bleach his mind of his own disordered thoughts; and how could anyone fault him? Devious imaginings about his parish priest are just a drop in a very large bucket, a tip of a massive iceberg. 

Above the rest of the dreadful clamor, however, Holden’s face rises in his mind. Holden, who stands between Hell and all mankind, trying with all his might to carry the sins of the world on his shoulders. Holden who would be so terribly disappointed, who might make himself suffer the consequences of Bill’s choices.

Instead of figuring out how he might have a drink before work, he takes a long shower. He turns the water on cold so that he doesn’t relax or enjoy it, forcing himself to shiver beneath the bitter spray until he’s clean and his body is devoid of any kind of desirous heat. 

He arrives to work early before any of the other agents, except for Wendy who seems to live inside her office. She comes out to get a cup of coffee from the communal pot in the corner, and notices him crouched over his desk with a stack of bank ledgers in front of him. 

“Bill, I wasn’t expecting you for another half hour.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Bill says, waving a hapless hand at his desk. “Figured I would do more good here than at home.”

She nods, thoughtfully, a vein of tension opening up behind her eyes. 

“Something the matter?” He asks. 

“There’s something I need to show you.”

“What is it?”

“Why don’t you come into my office?”

Bill frowns as she turns on her heel and goes back into her office, leaving the door open behind her. He climbs to his feet, and follows her inside. He has the urge to shut the door behind him even though no one else is in the bullpen. As the latch clicks shut, he lingers by the door with anxiety writhing in his belly. The irrational thought that she somehow knows the truth flashes across his mind. 

She waves for him to sit down. When he’s poised on the edge of the chair across from her, she clasps her hands on her desk and leans forward. 

“I need your absolute trust on this.” She says, her voice conspiratorially low.

“Of course.”

“I mean it. Can I trust you?”

“Yes.” He says, firmly, despite the voice in the back of his mind that says no one in their right mind should trust him. 

“Good.” She says, then reaches down to pull a leather-bound book out of her desk. She slides it across to him. “I haven’t told anyone else in this department or our superiors about it yet.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about illegal alcohol sales.” She says, “Corruption. Bribes. Extortion. You name it.”

Bill grabs the binder, casting her a curious gaze. “What do you mean? Here in D.C?”

“Yes, and in Papermill.” Wendy says, motioning for him to read the contents of the notebook, what looks to be scribbled notes of a surreptitious investigation thus far. 

“What do you know about Papermill?”

“I know that you tried to have Jerry Brudos and Ted Gunn investigated a year or so back.”

“I did.” Bill says, his heart picking up its pace as he leafs through the notes. “I didn’t realize that made it past the brass shutting it down.”

“Fortunately, I’ve had a bone to pick with Ted Gunn for awhile. He used to oversee this department when I was still a rookie agent. You might say we had a … turbulent relationship.”

Bill frowns at her carefully arranged, cool expression, glimpsing a hint of bitter anger behind her eyes. 

“So, this is personal.” 

“Yes. Is it personal to you?”

Bill glances away from her intuitive gaze, wondering just how many weeks she studied him before she decided that he could be trusted with this information. She seems confident that he’s one of the good guys. 

“Yes.” He says, finally. “I’ve had enough of Brudos and Gunn having a chokehold on our town.”

“Then what do you say? I’ve been trying to gather intel on my own for several months now, but it’s been slow going. And I need someone else who is going to take what I’m trying to accomplish personally. Gunn has a lot of friends in high places, some of them who are just as dirty as he is. If we do this, we could be stepping on toes that are more powerful than we are.”

Bill casts her a rueful smile. He doesn’t have much left to lose. 

“That doesn’t scare me.” He says, “Let’s get to toe-stepping.” 

^^^

That week, Bill takes the two remaining bottles of gin from his hiding spot in the burnt-out house down the street, and pours it out into the grass. As he watches the alcohol puddle and absorb into the dirt, he smokes a cigarette and tries to convince himself he’s doing the right thing. That he’s doing it because he wants to be better, and not for any kind of self-preservational or performatory reasons. That once the temptation is gone, the addiction will abate. 

The moment of cold panic he feels watching the last of the liquor drip out of the bottle tells him otherwise. 

After it’s done, he sits down in the grass behind the barn, and leans back against the coarse, splintering wood. He pulls the New Testament Bible that Holden gave him after their trip to Muddytown from his breast pocket where he had once carried his flask, and flips the small pages open to the Beatitudes. 

_ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.  _

It’s the only blessing he has a narrow association with, he thinks, and he should try harder to nobly rise to his duties as an officer of the law, a job which he had once taken on with pride and dedication. The badge on his belt is tarnished, but he has the chance to redeem it. Wendy has offered him that chance. 

The following morning, he drives out past the edge of town where a dirt road leads back into a patch of scraggly forest. An old, two-room cabin with a warped porch sits back from the path, but Bill can see Paul Bateson sitting in the rocking chair with a shotgun across his lap before he even turns down the driveway. Another man he doesn’t recognize is standing in the doorway of the cabin, bare-chested except for a double shoulder holster with matching, ivory-handled revolvers. Stolen most likely. These boys never pay for anything if they can manage it. 

Bill parks a few yards off, and walks the rest of the way to the porch. 

“Paul.” 

“Bill.” Paul says, studying him cautiously. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks.” Bill says, flatly. “Can we talk in private?”

Paul flicks a dismissive glance at the young man by his side, and the kid shuffles back into the cabin. 

“Apprentice?” Bill asks, stepping up onto the porch. 

Paul tilts his head back against the chair, and smiles slyly. “Do you really want to know?”

“Nope.”

“Didn’t think so.” 

Paul climbs to his feet, and pulls out his book of matches as Bill slides a cigarette into his mouth. 

“Thanks.” Bill mutters, leaning closer. 

Paul lights the match, and holds it over the tip of the cigarette until the flame holds. As Bill leans back, puffing on the cigarette, he blows delicately on the teardrop of fire. 

“I figured I would see you as soon as you got back into town.” He says, sounding disappointed. 

“I still had some left over from before I went to Pennsylvania.” 

“Well, it could have been a courtesy call.”

“ _ This  _ is a courtesy call, Paul. I need to ask you some questions.

Paul’s brow furrows, his coy act falling away. “About what?”

“Dean Corll and his boys. Why did they leave town? Brudos claims that he and his deputies ran them off, but I don’t buy it. I know he’s still making a profit off the alcohol trade in some way. And you're still here doing what you do.”

“I heard it was about money.” Paul says, “Corll didn’t like the cut Brudos was taking, or the way he was trying to control the business. He got sick of it.”

“Yeah, I’d be sick of that prick, too.”

“Why are you asking this?”

“I want to know who I’m dealing with. Who’s operating the still now?”

“Wayne Henley. He was one of Corll’s apprentices, but they had some kind of falling out so he stuck around when everyone else lit out.” 

“Where’s the still? I know they moved it because I went out there by Lake Clare where it used to be and the place was cleaned out.”

Paul frowns at him. “Why do you need to know that? You’re still a federal agent, Bill. I can’t give away all of the town secrets.”

“What kind of a rat are you?”

“A smart one.” 

Bill shakes his head. “All right, then. I have some bad news for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for one, I’m quitting.”

“Quitting your job?”

“Hell, no.” Bill says, scoffing a laugh. “Quitting this. The liquor.”

Paul’s eyebrows rise in disbelief. 

“I know.” Bill says, shaking his head grimly, and averting his gaze to the sunlit yard canopied by trees. “It should have happened a long time ago, but …”

“Pity. You were my favorite customer.”

“It was a business arrangement, Paul. You gave me good tips; I bought from you and kept your name out of the BOI offices. Don’t act like this is personal.”

Paul is still pouting as Bill shoots him a narrowed glance, but he quickly arranges his face into a smirk. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do your best, but you’ll be back.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Sure. That’s what they all say.”

“Fuck off, Paul. I’m trying to do you a favor here.”

“What favor?”

“I’m trying to warn you.” Bill says, “My SAC is onto this town. She’s going to pull on that thread until it unravels all the way back to D.C. Then she’s going to pull the rug out from under you.”

“She? I didn’t realize they let ladies into the BOI these days.”

“Well, they do. And she’s one of the best.” Bill says, taking a drag of his cigarette to soothe his nerves. “And I’ve already decided.”

“Decided?”

“I’m going to help her.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. Bill looks down at the scuffed planks of the porch at his feet where his ashes are falling, and Paul stares at him in bewilderment. 

“Jesus H. Christ.” Paul says, finally. “So, you’re sick of scrounging around here in the dirt with the rest of us degenerates, hm? Got a taste of what it’s like to be a hero, and now you’re fucking high on it?”

Bill whirls around, and punches Paul in the face before he can stop himself. White-hot pain explodes through his knuckles as his hand collides with Paul’s jaw, but he can hardly feel it past the surge of anger in his chest. 

Paul drops hard and fast on his backside. He clutches a hand over his face, groaning a curse. “Fuck you, Bill!”

“Fuck yourself, Paul. I shouldn’t even be here! I should be hanging you out to dry with the rest of the worthless bastards in this town. Instead, I’m here warning you and giving you a chance to get out. And if you had let me talk, I would have told you I already plan on keeping your name out of it.”

“Of course you are!” Paul says, pushing himself right and glaring at Bill with blood creeping from the corner of his mouth. “You can’t tell that cunt that’s your boss who I am without risking yourself. You're just as guilty as me.”

Bill stares down at him, his blood running hot. He wants to kick the shit out of this little prick right now, but Paul is two times smaller than him and defenseless when it comes to a fight. That’s why he sits in the chair with his shotgun at all times. Hitting him in his smart mouth was bad enough. 

“Just get out while you can.” Bill says, finally. 

He turns and walks down the steps back to his car without looking back. As he gets into his vehicle, he sees the young man with the pistols running back out of the cabin to help Paul to his feet. Neither of them attempt to draw their weapons or chase after Bill as he drives away from the cabin. 

He leaves the Bateson property in the rearview mirror, and drives back toward town where the looming smokestacks of the Brudos Mill belch smoky black into the sky. It lingers like a pall, like the disease that has crept into this town and laid hold; he can only pray that he’s put one foot on the righteous path, and that he’ll be a part of it’s healing from now on rather than it’s gradual destruction.


	6. a gradual dissolution of good intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill trades one vice for another.

Bill thought, or at least hoped, that if his actions matched his good intentions, then maybe his mind and body would follow; but it seems that quitting alcohol and deciding to undermine every criminal and corrupt official in Papermill hasn’t made a dent into the perverse longing he feels every time he sees Holden. 

_ His body is the body of an addict.  _ He thinks the following Sunday when he watches Holden’s plush lips speak the Word of God with uncouth thoughts trailing across his mind.  _ Trade one vice for another. Can’t fucking win.  _

After the confession line dwindles, Bill stays seated in the back pew. 

Holden steps out of the confessional, hands clasping hesitantly in front of him as he waits for Bill to approach. 

“Coming?” His voice carries across the auditorium, echoing faintly against the distant rafters. 

Bill shakes his head. 

Holden walks over to him, a small frown knitting his brow. He sits down on the pew in front of Bill’s, and turns to the side so that they’re facing each other. 

“Why are you still here, then?”

“I thought we could talk like we did last week.” Bill says. 

“You thought of more questions?”

Bill nods. 

Holden’s eyelids lower, but not before Bill can read the curiosity and hesitance in his eyes. His belly lunges as he wonders if Holden feels the same magnetic pull between them that Bill does, or if it’s just his imagination. 

“Where’s Nancy?” Holden asks, softly. 

“Gossiping.” Bill says, jabbing his chin toward the front door of the church. “They can go for hours.”

Holden laughs. “Okay. Come with me.”

They head to the back of the parish to Holden’s office, and Holden shuts the door behind them. The layer of privacy makes Bill’s insides flutter. 

“I suppose it’s a good thing that you don’t feel the need to come to confession as frequently.” Holden says as he circles his desk, and sits down. 

“Yeah, well, I told you before I didn’t think I saw any progress in myself. Maybe I was wrong.”

Holden’s mouth tugs with a smile. “Oh?”

Bill sinks down into the chair across from him, and drops his hat on the edge of Holden’s desk. 

“I’ve quit.” He says, spreading his hands. 

“Quit?”

“The gin. I poured out the last of my stash on Tuesday.”

Holden’s mouth moves in wordless surprise for a moment before he stammers, “Bill, that’s great to hear.”

“You thought I couldn’t do it.”

“No, you had my full confidence. You were lacking confidence in yourself. How did you find it?”

Bill shifts in his chair as Holden’s gaze needles into him. The momentary warmth of praise and acknowledgement from Holden is shuttered out like a dark cloud across the sun by the real truth - his scrambling attempt to balance the scales of his soul. One vice for another. 

“I thought about you … and Nancy, of course. I decided I wanted to do the right thing.”

Holden’s gaze sinks away momentarily. “I’m pleased I could make a difference.”

“After I did it, I pulled out my New Testament and read the Beatitudes again. I remembered what you said about it being a standard to strive for. I saw myself there in the peacemaker, and I figured if it was the only one I could reach then I should give it my all. So that’s what I’m doing - just trying to be a better federal agent.”

Holden smiles, faintly. “That’s noble. Can I give you some advice?”

“Sure.”

“I can’t be your only accountability. If you intend to stick by this decision, I think you need to come clean to your wife.”

Bill frowns, glancing away from Holden’s somber expression. 

“Part of overcoming this addiction is honesty with the people you love, admitting your wrongdoing, and knowing you can’t do it alone.”

“I don’t know. We’ve had this conversation before.” Bill says, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “She’s going to be upset.”

“If she loves you, she’ll try to understand.”

Bill scoffs. 

“What? You don’t agree?”

“You just have no idea …” Bill begins, then purses his mouth shut. 

“About what?”

Leaning back in his chair, Bill rearranges a calm expression and looks back at Holden. “Nothing. It’s just- … Me and Nancy have been through it and come out on the other side … broken.”

Holden’s eyes soften. “The infertility?”

“That. My job. The drinking. Everything.” Bill says, “We try to give each other our best, but at the end of the day …. Sometimes, it’s just not possible.”

“You know the two of you can talk to me.” Holden says, leaning forward to hold Bill’s gaze. “Maybe it’s time to seek God’s guidance in this matter.”

“We spoke to Father Jacobsen a few times.” Bill says. He catches Holden’s minute grimace of disdain at the mention of the former priest, and frowns. “Is there a problem with that?”

“No, he was your priest at the time.” Holden says, managing a reserved smile. “Just think on it, okay?”

“Okay.” 

But Bill doesn’t consider the offer or Holden’s suggestion that he admit the recurrence of his drinking problem to Nancy. 

That night as they’re getting ready for bed, he watches her sit in front of the vanity and clean the makeup off her face and comb her hair. Once upon a time, the slip of her nightgown off her shoulder would have drawn him up behind her to kiss the exposed skin, but they haven’t touched one another with that kind of passion in a few years. 

The distance began in earnest after the last miscarriage, a pregnancy carried halfway to term before the baby died inside her swollen belly. The child had been formed enough to be given a burial unlike the other failures, and it had broken them both to see the tiny wooden box lowered into the ground like tangible evidence of their violent incompatibility. They hadn’t tried again after that, resigned to the fact that a big family to match the other Catholic parents and numerous children in their town wasn’t meant to be for them. 

For the last few years, Bill hasn’t been sure if Nancy hates him or herself more. And he isn’t sure either. They’re both trapped in this marriage, a union that can’t be undone without turning them into the town pariahs. Nobody in Papermill gets divorced. Nobody in Papermill is childless either. It’s a community of high, Christian ideals where neither of them belong. 

“What?” Nancy asks, softly, bringing Bill back from his thoughts. 

He blinks, realizing he’s been caught staring at her. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

“About?” She asks, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. 

He shakes his head. 

A little while later, after the lamps are off and they’re both lying in bed, Bill stares up at the ceiling and tries not to think about Holden’s suggestions. Inevitably, thinking about Holden leads to other things he shouldn’t be considering. Communion wine and flesh in his mouth, his knees bruising against wooden floors and skin stinging with the lick of a whip. The dream keeps recurring, and he can’t get it out of his mind. 

Suddenly, Nancy rolls over onto her side, and puts a hand on his chest. 

“Hmm?” He mutters. 

She pushes up onto her elbow. “I missed you while you were away. Have I told you that?”

“No.” 

“Well, I did.”

Bill can barely make out her features in the darkness, whether she’s being honest or not. It sounds honest enough, but they’d had an argument the day before he left for Pennsylvania. She screamed at him for always leaving, he threw the glass in his hand at the wall. When he returned, they both acted as if it hadn’t happened. 

She bends down now to kiss him on the mouth, an offering of intimacy so unexpected that he’s paralyzed for a few seconds. As the taste and sensation of her mouth sinks in, he reaches up to clutch her by the cheek, carefully breaking them apart. 

In the dense shadows, they stare at each other and breathe heavily. Then she pushes back the sheets, and straddles his hips. Kissing him again, she runs her hands over his staggering chest, and grinds down against the growing erection beneath his shorts. 

He squeezes his eyes shut as the weight of her body and the taste of her mouth chafes against the thoughts in the back of his mind. He can’t tell her that he’s hard thinking about someone else, let alone their priest. 

Clutching her jaw, he breaks them apart with a hitched breath. 

“Wait,” He whispers, his voice shaking.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

He draws in a steadying breath, and pushes her off him as gently and firmly as he can. She tumbles to the mattress, a sound of disbelief rising in the back of her throat. 

“Bill,” She protests, quietly. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing, I’m just not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood? I could  _ feel _ -”

“Can we just not argue about this?” He demands, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “It’s not going to do any good anyway. You know that.”

She goes quiet, but he can feel the hurt rolling off her in waves. 

He should apologize. Instead, he climbs out of bed, and goes to the bathroom.

The mirror holds his conflicted expression, the half-hard lump beneath his shorts. He presses a hand to it forcefully to order it down, then bends to splash water on his flushing cheeks. 

_ You know where this is leading. Where it ended up last time.  _ He thinks, staring down his reflection.  _ Pain, guilt, more pain. All you do is hurt the people you love.  _

He wonders then if he’d been a bit too confident in skipping out on confession this week. Holden would probably tell him, “Pride cometh before a fall.” He would have been right. Bill is falling, falling hard; and it seems that no amount of good intentions, threats of agony, or recitations of prayers can reverse the path his heart has taken. 

^^^

Whenever Holden finds that he can’t focus on the Bible or the preparation of his sermon for the next week, he takes a walk down the main street, in the opposite direction of the mill, and into the more rural side of town where the houses are spaced apart by fields and the sunlight is dazzling on the rows of corn and soy. 

Today, he walks for a mile, hoping desperately that the exercise and clean air will rid his mind of wayward thoughts. After two weeks, his back is healed, and he would rather not put himself back into a position of penance and pain just as soon as he thought he’d learned his lesson. 

The midday sunlight beats down on the back of his neck as he walks at a fast clip down the side of the road, but he relishes the sweat trickling down his temples. He’s too focused on the ache in his feet and the burn in his muscles for Bill to invade his thoughts with his pale blue eyes, his roguish mouth, the chiseled cut of his jawline. The revolting anguish of his exhausted limbs feels something like success. 

He’s just thinking of heading back when he glimpses movement at the edge of a cornfield on the border of a dilapidated, white farmhouse that has chickens roaming free in the matted front yard and a fenced in area where a few scrawny horses are grazing the scarce grass. Two men are standing on the front porch conversing, one of them he recognizes as Monte Rissell. Today the deputy isn't dressed in his uniform, and he's standing near a truck labeled, Rissell's General Store, an establishment owned by his father.

“Holden. Get down.” Bill’s voice emanates from the rows of corn. A hand emerges from the stalks, waving him over. 

Frowning in confusion, Holden crosses the short distance to the edge of the corn where Bill is crouched with binoculars and a small notebook. 

“What are you doing?” He asks. 

“Better question is what are  _ you  _ doing all the way out here?” Bill asks, yanking him down by the wrist. 

“I was taking a walk. What’s going on?” 

“Well, you just walked into an illegal exchange of goods between Wayne Henley and one of our local deputies, here.” Bill says, squinting at the two men on the porch.

“What?” Holden whispers, his gaze swinging wildly toward the farmhouse. 

"They just loaded up the crates into the truck." Bill says, shaking his head. "It's clever, hiding the alcohol in with the foodstuff."

“Are you going to arrest them?”

“No.” Bill says, “Now shut up before they hear something.”

Holden purses his mouth shut, and shifts his gaze to Bill’s concentrated profile. The brim of his hat shades his eyes, but sweat trickles in narrow rivers down his temples and cheeks to the column of his throat. He’s wearing his shoulder holster with an imposing Colt .45 jutting from beneath his armpit, and his badge on a chain around his neck that lays against the open collar of his shirt. It’s a side of Bill that Holden hasn’t seen before, the BOI agent in the midst of an operation. Holden doesn’t have the sense to be offended that he’d just told a clergyman to shut up. 

Bill lifts the binoculars again as Rissell hands Henley a check. The two men bid farewell, Rissell drives away in the grocery truck, and Henley goes back into the farmhouse.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Bill says. 

He tucks his notebook in his pocket, and leads them back through the rows of corn in the direction Holden had come. Holden shuffles close behind him, squinting against the scratch of corn stalks brushing his cheeks. 

They emerge on the other side of the field where Bill had parked his car on the side of the road. He tosses the binoculars through the open window into the passenger’s seat, and turns to regard Holden with his hands on his hips. 

“You’re like a bad penny, Holden. You always turn up when I least expect it.”

“I apologize. I had no idea-”

“It’s okay. I’m glad it was you and not someone else.” Bill says, closing the distance between them in just a few strides and gazing down at Holden with a grim smile. “I know I can trust you.”

“You can. And I support any illegal activity being brought to light and given it’s due justice.”

“Good.” Bill says, doffing his hat and wiping his sleeve across his sweating forehead. “Because this town is a powder keg. I need to know you support blowing it to pieces.”

Holden frowns. “What does that mean?” 

“Come on.” Bill says, ignoring the question as he circles his car to climb behind the wheel. 

Holden has no choice but to get into the passenger’s side. Now that his concentration has been broken, he’d rather not walk the mile back to St. Stephen’s. 

Bill is quiet as he drives them back toward town with a cigarette pouring smoke from his mouth. 

“Why aren’t you arresting those men?” Holden asks, unable to stem his curiosity. “We both witnessed a deputy accepting liquor from Henley and exchanging it for money.”

“We can't prove it was liquor. As far as anyone knows, that check was for a legitimate purchase by his father's store. Besides, I don’t want them. I want the guys who own them.”

“Who owns them?”

Bill takes his cigarette from his mouth, and casts Holden a tense gaze. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. You’re a civilian.”

“I appreciate your concern, but I knew this town had corrupt people in place when I came here.”

“People like Father Jacobsen?”

“I’m not supposed to talk about it.” Holden says, focusing his gaze out the window. 

Bill drives past his house to the next street, takes a left turn, and pulls off into a pair of worn ruts in the ground that follow the backside of the soy field. Several yards off, the lonely apple tree glistens serendipitously beneath the afternoon sunlight. 

Bill gets out of the car, and nods for Holden to follow him. 

“What are we doing out here?” Holden asks. 

“There’s no one watching out here.” 

Bill strides across the field until he reaches the tree. Sitting down against the trunk, he braces his forearms over his knees, and takes a low drag of his cigarette. He motions for Holden to sit down beside him. 

Holden sits gingerly in the grass, his shoulder almost touching Bill’s. 

“Do you trust me?” Bill asks. 

Holden hesitates a moment. “Yes.”

“Good.” Bill says, shifting a somber gaze screened by cigarette smoke to Holden. “Then you need to tell me - was the reason Jacobsen left in any way related to Sheriff Brudos or Mayor Gunn?”

Holden swallows hard. “Bill, I-”

“It’s important, Holden.”

“I know it is. But the Diocese was very serious in instructing me not to speak about the matter. I could lose my position in this parish.”

Bill sighs, and shakes his head. “Yeah, if I’m not careful, I could lose my job, too. But it’s part of my personal penance, you know.”

Holden considers this remark carefully. Bill always plays his cards close to his chest, going to confession but never truly revealing the things that haunt him. It’s more honesty in one sentence than he’s let slip in the two and a half months that they’ve known one another. 

“Wouldn’t it be against God or something to let men like Brudos and Gunn remain in positions of power?” Bill asks as the wind rustles through the tree overhead, grating against Holden’s silence. 

“Yes, you’re right.” Holden says, lowering his head. “But you have no idea how hard I’ve worked for this, Bill.”

Bill huffs a sigh. “Yeah. I couldn’t live with myself if you got caught in the cross-fire. I should keep you out of it, but you kind of walked into it.”

“You’re worried about me?”

Bill’s eyes are startled for a moment he grimaces a smile. “Yeah. I need a priest who doesn’t look at me and consider me a lost cause.”

Holden clenches his jaw at the deflection. “You’re not a lost cause. No one is. There’s always a chance for redemption.”

“I’m doing my best.”

“I know. Did you consider what I said on Sunday?”

“No.” 

“Why not? I want to help.”

“Some things are beyond help.” 

“I disagree.”

Bill shakes his head, and drops his cigarette into the grass where he crushes it with the heel of his boot. “There are some things you just can’t understand - not unless you’ve been married for fifteen years the way I have been.”

“Do you love her?”

Bill casts him a sharp glance that’s briefly incensed by the bold probing before it melts down into something closer to resignation. “Yes.”

“Then if that love is still alive …”

“Well, maybe there’s love, but there isn’t trust. Like I told you before, I’ve done a lot of wrong in my life. I’ve been … unfaithful to her.”

Holden pauses, stunned. He hadn’t expected honesty, let alone a confession of this magnitude. His pulse begins to race, conclusions gathering like a burrowed itch beneath his skin. 

“I don’t think you should be telling me this outside of the confessional.” Holden says, “You need to give this to God.”

“You think cheating on my wife is deserving of one of those canes you have handy?”

Holden’s throat constricts at the suggestion though Bill had said it with that edge of flippancy he always does when he’s trying to mitigate his own vulnerability. 

He glances over his shoulder at Holden when Holden doesn’t immediately respond, and there’s a flicker of something dark and dangerous behind the faded blue of his eyes. 

“Yes?” He murmurs. “It’s been more than once, Father. A repeat offense with …”

He stops here, his eyes squinting. Shifting his gaze back to the field, he pulls a new cigarette and his lighter out of his shirt pocket with trembling fingers. The scrape of the flame igniting echoes against the still, hot wind between them. Holden can feel sweat trickling down his spine. 

“With who?” He prompts in a choked voice. 

Bill’s cheeks hollow as he takes a hard drag of his cigarette. He doesn’t answer, just stares out into the swaying corn with a scowl set on his brow. 

“Bill, I can’t offer you penance right now.” Holden whispers, “If you’re ready to let this sin go into the hands of God, we should go to St. Stephen’s so that we can do this the right way.”

“You really think saying a few Hail Mary’s is going to make me feel better about stepping out on my wife?” Bill asks, his tone taking on a cruel edge. “I could pray the rosary one hundred times and it wouldn’t make me stop feeling sick to my stomach every time I look at her. Or remembering how it felt when I was with someone else - how it felt so much fucking better-”

The shrill cry of a bird sailing across the clear blue sky interrupts the gathering tension and Bill’s stifled silence. He lowers his head, pressing a hand over his eyes as his breathing picks up. 

Against his better judgement, Holden reaches over to put a gentle hand on his shoulder. The musculature underneath ripples with a muted flinch, as if Holden’s fingertips had burned him, but he eventually leans into it with a shuddering sigh. 

Holden tries to think of an adequate passage of Scripture for this moment, the ones he had been taught about in seminary to combat carnal desires. It all seems sanctimonious and pale in the face of these unraveling seconds brewing with wrong desires.

“And that’s not even the worst of it.” Bill whispers, his voice low and trembling. 

Holden leans in, his hand sliding across Bill’s shoulder to his nape. The skin is flushed with heat, damp with perspiration, trembling at his light touch. 

“Fuck,” Bill mutters, lifting his head. His burning gaze finds its way to Holden’s, and they’re separated by no more than the breeze and humid breaths. “I think about doing it again. And again, and again, and  _ again,  _ and-”

Holden gasps as Bill’s confession dwindles into the hot press of his mouth. The last thing he sees before he’s being kissed is Bill’s cutting blue eyes getting so close that their image blurs into a mass of white heat; then his eyes slam shut, and he’s paralyzed as Bill’s calloused palm cradles his scalding cheek, drawing him into the kiss with hungry, desperate force. 

His mouth tastes of smoke, and his tongue is hot and wet against the seam of Holden’s lower lip. When Holden’s mouth trembles open, it slips inside, licking hungrily against the ridge of his teeth and his own choking tongue. 

It takes Holden’s reeling mind that long to conjure up a protest. Planting his hands against Bill’s chest, he separates them with a jolt. When his mouth breaks away, he's panting as if he'll never be able to catch his breath again. His body surges with conflicting impulses of need and horror, and he scrambles back against the grass, clutching at his singeing, kissed mouth. 

“What are you doing?” He cries, humiliated tears rushing to the corners of his eyes. 

Bill presses a hand over his face, breathing shakily, whispering, “I don’t know. Fuck. I’m sorry. I don’t fucking know-”

Holden tries to breathe through the rising panic, but every fiber of his body is on edge, screaming, set aflame by an intimate caress he hasn’t felt in years. Part of him wants to run from the field and never look back; the other part wants to crawl into Bill’s lap, press their bodies as close together as possible, let Bill touch him in every carnal, irreverent way possible, and destroy the purity of his body forever. 

Bill drags his hand away from his face, and casts Holden a fearful gaze, limpid with mortified tears. “Forgive me, Father. I must have lost my mind for a minute, I just-”

“I need to go.” Holden says, climbing shakily to his feet. “This is wrong. I shouldn’t be here.”

Bill scrambles up from the ground, and catches onto Holden’s wrist before he can leave the shade of the tree. 

“Holden, wait.” He says, his grip so firm it’s almost crushing. 

Holden twists his arm free of Bill’s hand, and takes a staggered step back. “It’s ‘Father.’”

Bill’s brow sinks into a defeated frown. “Yes … Father.”

“I am your priest.” Holden says, his voice trembling as he jabs a righteously angry finger at him. “You’ve jeopardized not only your soul, but mine as well. I have an oath of celibacy, Bill - an oath I take with the utmost respect and sobriety. Do you have any idea of what you’ve done to me?”

Bill lowers his head, not answering except for the slight wag of his chin. 

Holden shivers, blinking against the hot sting of tears. “The next time we see each other it should be with a curtain standing between us, and you begging God for forgiveness.”

Bill nods again. “Yes, Father.”

Holden turns to leave, the field beyond swimming before his vision, but Bill catches him by the elbow. Holden whirls around, and retrieves his arm. 

“What?” He demands. 

“Father, please …” Bill says, his eyes squinting with a flash of agony. “Don’t blame yourself for my mistakes.”

Holden swallows hard. The tender skin stretched across his back is already aching. And Bill knows.  _ He knows.  _

“Don’t ever touch me again.” He whispers. 

Bill looks stricken. But he stands still, and watches Holden go. 

When Holden gets to the road, he starts to run. He doesn’t look back. He runs, pushing himself past his burning muscles and his gasping lungs. He runs until his shirt is damp on his back, and the press of the stiff, white collar at his throat is like a cinching noose. He doesn’t stop running until he reaches St. Stephen’s. 

The parish sanctuary is utterly silent and deserted in the middle of the day. His breaths grate raspily against the high ceiling and cool, stone floors as he drags himself down the aisle to the front of the church. Falling to the knees at the steps, he whispers a half-formed prayer, a string of apologies, a sobbing testament of his faith. 

When he opens his wet eyes and looks up at the crucified Christ hanging on the wall above him, the eyes of Jesus are passive with cold indifference. 

^^^

To Nancy’s frustration, Bill refuses to go to Mass on Sunday. She argues with him over the decision for ten minutes before realizing he isn’t going to explain his reasoning, and marches out the door saying she’s going to be late. 

Bill stays at the house for less than half an hour after she leaves. Tormented by his own thoughts and the silence of the four walls judging him, he walks down the road to the burnt farmhouse where he had once gone for solace in the bottom of a liquor bottle. There’s no liquor here today, though he wishes there was. 

The day is cooler than that afternoon beneath the apple tree with Holden though the heat of summer lingers in a shimmering mirage over the tops of the distant cornfield. He lays down in the grass, and smokes a cigarette that’s a poor replacement for the escape of the gin.

It seems strange that nearly three months have passed since his return from Altoona. Three months without David. Three months of hating himself from the moment he opens his eyes in the morning. Not much has changed except for his varying reasons for his self-loathing; but as much as he hates what he did - kissing _a priest_ for God’s sake \- he can’t shake the memory of Holden’s mouth beneath his own. It’s set in his mind like an insect suspended in amber, a frozen fragment of time that he can’t take back or stop rehearsing in his thoughts. 

Bill’s eyes slip shut, and his cigarette falls away from his lips as he easily recalls the sweet taste of Holden’s lips, the way he’d whimpered and trembled beneath the kiss.  _ Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?  _ The righteous indignation can’t dampen the heat that crawls into his belly and chest every time he thinks about it. 

Uttering a soft groan, Bill looks down to see the front of his trousers tented with wild, imprudent desire. He mutters a curse and tries to ignore it, but the heat is already up and running through his veins. 

The gradual dissolution of his good intentions fractures away entirely. 

Stamping out his cigarette, Bill tugs open the buttons of his trousers with a trembling hand. When he delves his hand beneath the waistband of his shorts, he bites back a breathless cry of intense arousal. He wraps his fingers around the shaft, jerking slowly, trying to hold himself back from reaching climax instantly. 

Pinching his fingers tightly around the pulsing root, he presses his eyes shut and inhales slowly. Trembles as he thinks of Holden on the grass beneath him, collar strewn away from his neck, cock hard and jutting from his trousers. Fat tears dripping from his eyes as he breaks every oath he ever made to himself and to God, sobbing with arousal, and coming hard and messy for the first time in years.

_ Jesus, you’re sick.  _ He thinks, but he’s already touching himself desperately to the fantasy unraveling behind his eyelids; and he can’t stop it as the pleasure rises quick and fierce, punching hard through his belly and bursting in hot gushes under the duress of his first. 

He shudders and groans through the length of it, hanging onto every thrilling second of intense orgasm until the last of the spasms fade away. He opens his eyes slowly to the sky, his body humming with the dull, vapid satisfaction of solitary relief.

An errant cloud drifts across the clean blue slate of the sky, making a direct path for the sun. By the time it blocks out the light, the short-lived pleasure has withered beneath the crushing bootheel of guilt. 

_ Holden was right.  _ He thinks, climbing to his feet, and heading for home with self-disgust churning in his belly.  _ I’m damning us both to Hell.  _


	7. we're all just trying to be holy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weight of the past and Altoona begins to manifest itself in the present and Papermill

Bill comes back to church the second week of July, just as the days are getting, long and scorching. Holden is truly surprised to see him sitting in the pew next to Nancy when he steps up behind the podium for Mass. It had been so long that he was beginning to think that he would never see Bill among the congregation again; and the thought had come with a strange twinge of both relief and dread. 

He’d taken the last few weeks to evaluate himself, confess his sins to God, and do penance for the immoral things in his own heart and mind. After days of prayer and some fasting, he felt better, calmer, and convinced that the needs Bill had recklessly thrown on him had their root in Bill’s troubled soul only and not his own. 

Looking across the auditorium and seeing Bill look back at him again, his faith is shaken. 

At the end of the service, Holden heads for the confessional booth. He tries to stay focused through the line of parishioners, but it takes concerted effort to stay in tune with the ritual. 

He doesn’t step outside the confessional when he hears Bill’s muttered voice exchange pleasantries with the last congregant in front of him. His chest hammers, a cold sweat breaking out beneath his robe. 

_ He’s come to confession. It’s a good thing.  _ He tells himself. 

The door on the other side creaks open, and he watches as Bill’s shadow falls past the edges of the purple curtain between them. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three weeks since my last confession.” 

Holden swallows hard. Bill’s voice sounds deeper, huskier than he recalled. Tied up with pent-up guilt and longing. It does things to him, down in the pit of his stomach. 

“You’ve done well to come back.” Holden says, trying to keep the shiver out of his voice. “God welcomes every penitent child before him with open arms.”

“And his priests?”

Holden blinks at the pointed question. “I am a vessel of God. I do His will.”

“So … yes.”

“Yes, Bill. Remember, I wanted you to come to confession.”  _ I begged, actually.  _

Bill clears his throat. “Forgive me for taking so long. I … I needed to sit with it.”

“It’s always better to confess right away.”

“No, sometimes we have to live with our mistakes.”

“You question God’s plan? When you live with sin, you put your soul in danger.”

“Well. Who am I to argue with a vessel of God?” Bill asks, but there’s no mocking undertone, just weary resignation. 

“Confess your sins, child. Unburden yourself.”

There’s a stifled stretch of silence before Bill draws in a deep breath. “I’m guilty of the sins of lying, anger, not attending Mass like I should, and violence.”

“Violence?”

“I punched a guy who didn’t deserve it.” Bill says, “Weeks ago. I should have confessed that the last time, I guess.”

“I see. Go on.” Holden says, silently wondering who had taken the brunt of Bill’s wrath.

“I’m guilty of lust. Of being unfaithful to my wife.” Bill says, “With another person, and myself.”

Holden’s jaw clenches at that last admission. He squeezes his eyes shut against the image of Bill touching himself that pops up in his head. 

“I’ve been a terrible husband.” Bill continues, quietly, his voice taking on a choked quality. “I’ve had perverse thoughts. I’ve …”

“It’s okay, child. Keep going. Admit it, even if it’s painful.”

“I’ve hurt people.” Bill whispers out, “Those who deserved it and those who didn’t. I’ve been greedy, selfish, lustful. I’ve committed the sin of- … of homosexuality, and I’ve paid the price for it. But it hasn’t taught me anything, Father; I’m still … these thoughts that I have- they never seem to leave my mind, no matter how hard I try.”

Holden doesn’t realize he’s gripping the rosary around his neck so hard until the crucifix begins to bite into his palm. He inhales slowly through his nostrils to disguise the sound of him releasing a tightly held breath, and relaxes his fist. 

“Are you truly penitent for these sins?”

“Yes, Father. I want to do better. That's all I want.”

“Then God will forgive you.” Holden says, “Is there anything else you would like to confess?”

“Well, I’m afraid I’ve dragged someone else’s soul closer to the gates of Purgatory right along with me. And I pray he forgives me.” 

“That isn’t a confession.”

“No, it’s a prayer. I’m allowed to pray here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, of course.” 

“Then I pray wholeheartedly that he hears me and forgives me.”

“To God?”

“To him, because his soul is pure and mine is ugly, and dark, and-”

“You cannot pray to someone unless they’ve been granted sainthood, Bill.” Holden says, trying to keep his tone even while frustration and pain tangle in his chest. 

He wants to reach out and yank back the curtain so that he could look into Bill’s eyes while he begs. It would feel a little nice, wouldn’t it? To see Bill suffer for what he’s done. To see him throw himself down prostrate at Holden’s feet and say he’s sorry for ever touching him - for ever making Holden think he wants to touch him back. 

“Then that’s all I can remember right now. I’m sorry for these, and all my sins.” Bill says, his voice hardening in response to Holden’s rigidity. “What’s my penance, Father?”

“The lust you carry in your heart is weighing on you heavily.”

“Yes.”

“I want you to pray the rosary every day this week, and think about the souls in Purgatory while you do it. Consider where your thoughts and actions are leading you. You must also temper yourself. Deny yourself for a time. Dwell on God’s Word to bring you back into His grace.” 

He can hear Bill’s swallow from behind the curtain. “You want me to perform abstinence?”

“Yes. Not forever, of course. Just for a time. I think a month is sufficient.”

A moment of silence before Bill yields to the penance with a whispered, “Yes, Father.”

When Holden says  _ I absolve you of your sins  _ he closes his eyes, and tells himself it was an apt and fitting penance for the sins Bill admitted to. It isn’t unheard of or harsh. So why did it feel so good to deliver it? 

They step out of the confessional at the same time once he’s finished saying the blessing. For the first time in three weeks, they’re standing right in front of each other. 

Holden regards Bill’s tired eyes and weathered expression with what he hopes is cool indifference. 

Bill turns his hat around in his hands the way he does when he’s nervous. A lock of black hair, shot through with silver, tumbles against his tense forehead as he studies his feet, then looks back up at Holden. 

“So, um … how have you been?”

“Well. And yourself?”

“Getting by.” Bill says, hardly trying to conceal the look of exhaustion on his face. 

Holden can’t tell if he wants to push him further, down onto his knees, or if he wants to soothe the pain in his eyes. 

“I’ve been working a lot.” He adds, “So, I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me. You just confessed to God.” 

Bill nods. “Yeah, well. That’s the thing, Holden. I do.”

“I’ve already forgiven you.” Holden says, quickly, hardly wanting to discuss what happened inside the walls of the church. 

“Was that before or after you used one of those whips on yourself?” Bill asks, his gaze steady and cutting.

“What types of penance I choose to perform are between myself and the Heavenly Father.” 

Bill’s jaw hardens, and a deep breath hisses past his teeth. “Christ, Holden. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was me. I-”

“Bill, please.” Holden says, holding up a hand and turning to walk away. “You’re here. You confessed. Let’s leave it at that, and begin again.”

“Wait a minute.” Bill says, his hand at Holden’s elbow. 

Holden pulls away sharply, casting Bill a glare. 

“I’m sorry.” Bill holds up his hands. “Forgive me, Father. But I can’t stand the thought of you paying for what I’ve done. Enough innocent people have already suffered because of me.” 

Holden shakes his head, angry heat rising his chest. “You would love to be the worst sinner in this church, wouldn’t you?”

Bill frowns, taking a shuffled step backwards. 

Holden tries to use a softer voice when he says, “We’re all just trying to be holy, Bill. The work is eternal.”

He leaves Bill standing there with his hat in his hands, and his eyes scintillating like gemstones in the smothered light that stretches past stained glass, alive with both disbelief and some kind of relief. 

^^^

Unexpectedly, Mary McNeil comes back to church. 

She walks into St. Stephen’s with her chin held high and her shoulders squared against the ensuing ripple of gossip that spreads around her like a wave. She brings her two children with her, a boy and girl, ages thirteen and fifteen - that crucial age when a mind decides it has its own will. Tucker had taught his kids a thing or two about strength and defiance because that’s who he is, and they walk alongside her with the same kind of childish rage that Bill recognizes from their youth. 

Nancy stands up from the pew to offer Mary and the kids a spot beside them. Everyone notices. 

Bill tries hard not to feel every single gaze in the building on him as they all sink down to the kneelers for the first prayer, but when he opens his eyes, he glimpses Hannah Ashford looking balefully over her shoulder at the other woman. 

Not so long ago, Mary, Hannah, and Nancy had been close friends. The three of them had their own reading club, shopping trips to Alexandria, and routine lunches that they liked to gossip over. Get-togethers among the three families were common. But in a little under a year’s time, the once solid foundations have fractured in two. 

Bill can feel the animosity humming beneath the surface of the sanctuary for the length of Mass. As he and Nancy are walking out of the church with Mary, Hannah joins them with a taut, pale expression. Brian is at her side, his arm limp in her firm grip and his eyes focused on the ground.

“Mary.” 

“Hannah.” Mary says, “How are you?”

“How do you think?” 

They all stop at the bottom of the church steps where Mary gazes sadly at the hardened anger on Hannah’s face. 

“Hannah, you have to know how sorry I am.” She says, softly. 

“Sorry.” Hannah echoes, giving a choked, tearful laugh. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard that in the past few months? ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ God, I could scream if I hear that one more time, Mary.”

“What do you want me to say? I’ve lost my husband, too.”

“Hannah, you can’t blame her for what Tuck did.” Nancy interjects, as gently as she can. 

“Then who should I blame, Nancy?” Hannah demands, shifting her enraged glare to Nancy. “Her lily-livered husband isn’t here for me to blame - to ask why he killed my David! I can’t blame Bill - he could have ended up just like my husband, and I can’t blame God, because apparently this is all part of His plan!”

“I know this is unfair.” Mary says, beginning to cry. “But what can I say to you? This isn’t something I ever thought would happen. The man I married wouldn’t-”

“But he did. And now David is never coming back.” Hannah says, her anger plunging down into raw grief as tears spill down her cheeks. 

“Oh, Hannah,” Nancy says, reaching out to pull the other woman to her. 

Hannah cries into Nancy’s shoulder for a moment, and Bill glances around anxiously at the parish front yard to see everyone watching the exchange with wide eyes and bated breaths. 

“What can I do?” Mary asks, desperately, grasping Hannah’s shoulder. 

Hannah lifts her head from Nancy’s shoulder, eyes burning with deep, hurt rage and spilling over with tears. “I want you to leave me alone. Leave and never come back!”

Bill’s stomach knots as Mary glances around the front of the parish with glistening eyes and quivering chin, watching as every person she knew in this town, people who used to be her friends, stare back in mounting disdain. 

“You should probably do what the lady says.” One man speaks up, his brow curling in disgust. 

Mary sniffs, a tear streaking down her cheeks. “Please, I live here. I don’t know where else to go.”

“We don’t care where you go.” Another woman says, waving a hand at Hannah’s distress, “Look at her. Anywhere would be better than here.”

“Now hold on.” Bill says, lifting a hand against the incoming tide of grumbled agreements. 

Before he can try to mitigate the spiraling standoff, Holden comes out onto the front steps of the church to scan the restless crowd. 

“What’s the matter here?”

“Nobody wants the family of a murderer coming around here.” A male parishioner says, “Look at Mrs. Ashford, Father. She’s been through enough.”

There’s a murmur of agreement across the crowd, but Holden lifts a hand. 

“Hold on. We can’t dispel someone from church for the sins of their spouse.” He says, “Jesus says ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ and ‘forgive those who trespass against us.’ His message was love and mercy to sinners; not anger and revulsion-”

“But, Father,” A woman says, waving a hand at Mary, “How could she not have known?”

“That isn’t the point.” Holden says, but the thought has already taken hold of the crowd. As the angry whispers swell across the yard, he raises both hands, “People, please - love and mercy!”

“Come on, let’s go.” Bill says, ignoring the attempt at swaying the public opinion.

He puts a hand on Mary’s back, and leads them past the sneering faces and jeering voices. She’s crying as he puts her into the backseat of their car with the kids, and tells her they’re leaving. She doesn’t stop crying until they’re on the road headed back to Bill and Nancy’s house, and her head is nestled down against her teenage son’s shoulder. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Nancy asks into the silence. 

“It’s useless.” Bill says, shaking his head. “Those people don’t want to hear reason.”

“You’re their self-ascribed hero. Maybe they would have listened to you.”

Bill shoots her a look. 

She crosses her arms, and lifts her chin. 

The rest of the drive is quiet. When they get to the house, Nancy shows the kids the porch swing and gives them glasses of lemonade and chocolate chip cookies. 

Bill sits with Mary in the living room, quietly studying her pallid cheeks and red-rimmed eyes. The guilt is almost enough to crush him. 

“Tuck sent me a letter.” Mary says, finally. 

“What?”

“Last week.” Mary says, opening her purse and pulling a folded piece of paper from within. “It gave me the strength to come back to church, but now I wonder if he was just filling me with false hope the way he always does.”

Bill rubs a hand over his face, trying to conceal the sway this confession has over his composure. Nausea crawls into his belly, quick and all at once, the shadow of the other foot finally falling that he’s been anticipating for the past few months. 

“What does it say?” He asks, weakly. 

Mary unfolds the letter, and runs tremulous fingertips across the page. “That he’s going to find a way to get back to me. He says he can’t tell me the truth just yet, but he will.”

Bill’s armpits itch with a cold sweat. “Can I see it?”

She hands the letter over without complaint, and leans back against the sofa with her arms wrapped around her middle. 

Bill looks down at the letter, recognizing Tuck’s handwriting immediately. 

_ Sweetheart,  _ the letter begins,  _ I am alive.  _

Bill’s chest tightens. They’d all known - him most of all - but seeing it in writing is like a gun pressed to the base of his skull. 

_ I’m mailing this letter from Texas, but by the time it reaches you, I will be long gone. Give it to the BOI if you would like. There’s nothing in here to tell them where I’ve gone. I don’t want you to suffer any further for my mistakes than I’m sure you already are. I know how it is in Papermill, the way people will blame you and hate you for what I’ve done. Just remember that they’re small, petty people with narrow minds and selfish hearts. They don’t know what really happened on that mountain. I wish I could tell you the whole truth right now, but I will eventually. You know how the truth always comes out in time. It’s going to come out when I find my way back to you. If you’ll still have me of course. If Bill and the rest of them haven’t turned you against me. I never thought it would be someone so close to me, but you never can know. Don’t trust anyone, Mary. No one. In the meantime, know that I love you deeply, with all my heart, that I miss you and kids terribly, that I’m dedicating my life right now to being in your arms again. With all my love, Tuck  _

Bill scans the letter again, especially the part where he’s mentioned. His stomach turns. 

“What did he mean?” Mary asks, casting him a probing gaze. “About what really happened and not trusting anyone; and you, turning me against him?”

“I didn’t need to, Mary.” Bill says, “He shot David. I was there. That’s what really happened.”

“So you said.”

“I’m not lying. Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know, Bill. He said not to trust anyone, and I still believe in my husband no matter what anyone says.”

“He was paranoid. You know that. You know how he was.”

“Yes, well, he wasn’t a murderer. That much I know.” Mary says, rising stiffly from the couch. “You have to tell your bosses about this letter, don't you?”

“Yeah, I do.” He says, standing to meet her wavering gaze. “May I keep this?”

"Yes. I gave him a week's headstart. It’s the best I could do. Am I going to be in a lot of trouble?" 

"I'll make sure you’re not. You did what you thought was right by your husband."

She glances away, pressing a hand to her mouth. Tears swell at the corners of her eyes again. Putting a hand on her shoulder, he squeezes assuringly until the rush of emotion passes and she twists away from his touch. 

“I’m not leaving.” She says, finally, her voice halting yet fierce. “I have a right to live here the same as you or Hannah.”

“I know that.”

“And besides, I have to be here when Tuck comes back. And he will come back, Bill. I know my husband, and he’ll be back.”

She brushes past him, and he can hear her calling to the kids that they’re leaving. 

Nancy offers to drive them back into town. Bill doesn’t say goodbye to any of them as they pack back into the car and drive away. 

In the utter silence of the house, Bill paces in a tight circle in the middle of the living room. The grip of guilt and dread in his chest squeezes tighter and tighter until he crumples the letter in his fist and slams his knuckles into the wall. A strangled grunt lurches from his mouth on impact, and he presses his forehead against the wall, breathing hard through his nose as the pain rips down his hand and into his forearm. 

The surge of anger deflates in a flash. The hot tears against his eyelids are borne of pain and desperation. 

“Fuck you, Tuck.” He whispers, low and choked, “Fuck you.  _ Fuck you. _ ”

But Tuck can’t hear him. That stubborn, crazy bastard had never listened to him, not once, not even when Bill tried to save his life. 

By the time Nancy comes back, he’s iced his knuckles and calmed himself down. She comes into the kitchen with a worried look on her face. 

“I’m afraid for her, Bill, I really am.” Nancy says, “I don’t want the people in this town to drive her away, but I don’t think it’s safe for her to stay either.”

She stops when she sees him inspecting the bruise swelling across his hand. 

“What happened?” 

Bill rises abruptly from the table. “I don’t want you talking to her anymore, Nancy.”

“What?” She whispers, her face going slack with disbelief. “Why?”

“I just don’t. Like you said, it isn’t safe.” 

Before she can protest, he shoulders past her, and goes out onto the back porch where a shimmering, humid haze hangs beneath puffy, white clouds. He lights a cigarette, inhales hard on the nicotine, stares out into the verdant, glowing cornfield, and silently, desperately wishes he could go back and change everything at Wopsononock Mountain. 

^^^

By the end of July, Bill and Wendy have documented almost every person in Papermill that’s involved in the illegal alcohol trade. They have a list compiled in her leather-bound notebook of the notable players and their roles. There’s a few important slots missing even though Bill had a breakthrough when he witnessed Sheriff Brudos interact with Wayne Henley outside a restaurant in town. The sheriff hadn’t done anything that could be construed as illegal, but the fact that the two of them seemed to know each other well enough to be meeting up for lunch lended to their case. 

“I’m not concerned about nailing Brudos.” Wendy says, one Thursday afternoon in her office while the rest of the fraud department sits beyond the closed door. “It’s Gunn I want.”

“He’s shrewd.” Bill says, “When I tried to have him looked at a year ago, everything came back clean as a whistle - supposedly.”

“You said you questioned the validity of his election in the first place? That he might have intimidated people for votes?” 

“Not exactly. Here’s the thing: years ago, when he first made the move from here at the BOI to politics, everyone in Papermill thought it would be great. He came from money, but he was a lawman, someone people thought they could trust; but as soon as he got onto the town council, it was clear he was only interested in benefiting himself. The salt-of-the-earth, hard-working people got fed up with his antics back then, but he’s made alliances with the other half - the unsavory half. Obviously, Sheriff Brudos and the whole Brudos family, who pretty much owns the town. Jerry’s dad, Henry, has a stake in a lot of the real estate, and his brother mostly runs the mill. They have money, Gunn has money - the three of them probably have more money than the rest of the town combined. That’s how he ended up as mayor. Even if he isn’t incredibly well-liked, it’s not hard for him to buy people’s loyalty.”

“Right. The problem is that he always makes other people do the dirty work. He learned here at the BOI that you don’t get your own hands dirty.”

“Well, he’s rich enough to get someone else’s hands dirty. The right people’s hands.” 

“I agree. In fact, it's my belief that some of the men in charge around here are just as corrupt as he is; but even if they aren’t, could you imagine the scandal? He has his fingers in so many different illegal endeavors, the public would crucify us for not knowing.”

“A little crucifixion might be good for this institution.” Bill says, “Remind J. Edgar Hoover that he isn’t God every once in awhile.”

Wendy meets his cynicism with a faint smile. She taps her pen against the list of culprits. “We need more than just the alcohol. Those charges could be negligible by the election. What I’m interested in is the extortion and bribery. Concrete proof. Correspondence. Written evidence. Bank records. But I can’t officially subpoena anything without drawing too much attention.”

“I’m not sure how we get to that information, then.” 

“We need someone we can trust on the inside.”

“Well, I don’t trust anyone in that town.”

The investigation seems to be at a standstill. They both know that they could arrest the low level players and rid the town of its alcohol scourge for perhaps a few months; but space abhors a vacuum, and with Brudos and Gunn still in play, they’d have a new operation up and running in no time. 

It's not the only effort that's proved futile for the BOI. 

Shepard comes over to the fraud department after lunch with a grim expression on his face. 

“Do you have a minute?” He asks, approaching Bill’s desk. 

“Sure.”

Shepard nods for him to follow, and they go out into the hallway where it’s quiet and mostly private. 

“We had the lab look at Agent McNeil’s letter. There was nothing there of use.”

“What about his location?”

“I had two agents down in Texas this week. Nothing. He’s gone, just like he said he would be.” 

“Fuck.” Bill mutters, grazing a hand over his jaw. “No sign of where he’s gone?”

“No. I’m afraid we’ve exhausted all of our options of where to look. We’ve gone through every town he ever lived in, every place that had some minor significance to him. It’s like he’d disappeared until this letter.”

“Well, he’s a damn good agent. He knows how to hide his tracks.”

“Bill, I’m concerned.” Shepard says, his brow furrowing. “The tone of that letter was extremely bitter and hateful towards you specifically. I think it might be wise to get you some protection until we can-”

“Protection?”

“Yes. At the house.”

“No, I don’t think so.” 

“The man has gone mad. He killed a close friend of his, stole the money, and left behind his family.” Shepard says, “We don’t know what he’ll do next.”

“All due respect, sir, I’ve been on those protection details. I don’t want someone watching my every move like that. And I don’t want Tuck walking into a shoot-out if he does decide to come back. God willing, he’ll remember that I’m his friend and surrender himself.”

“That’s a best case scenario. We know those don’t always happen.”

Bill shrugs. “Thanks for your concern, but I can look after myself and Nancy just fine. Just keep me abreast of any developments.”

“Of course.” Shepard says, wanly shaking Bill’s offered hand, the worry not yet departed from his face. 

Bill drives home that evening with frustration simmering in his belly. His thoughts are so wrapped up in the details of the covert operation and Tuck’s letter that he nearly rear-ends the vehicle in front of him driving through uptown, residential Papermill. He mutters a curse as he quickly realizes that the traffic is backed up because just around the next corner, three sheriff’s cars and an ambulance are sitting outside of one of the houses. 

Bill’s stomach sinks hard and fast as the line of cars creeps forward, and he gets an unobstructed view of the commotion unfolding right in front of the Ashford home. 

“Jesus, no.” He whispers, his first, terrified thought going to young Brian. 

As quickly as he can, he maneuvers his car down the street, past the crowded onlookers and the entourage of emergency vehicles until he finds an open spot along the curb. His hands are shaking and a cold, clammy sweat breaks out on his brow despite the hot, summer air as he climbs out of his car and crosses the sidewalk to the edge of the police line. 

Deputy Rissel notices him coming, and shouts for Brudos to join him. The sheriff lumbers from the front of the house to meet Bill at the edge of the property. 

“What the hell’s going on? Is Brian okay?” Bill asks, his gaze moving past Brudos to the front of the house where the door stands open to the living room. 

“Brian’s fine.” Brudos says, “I can’t let you in here, Bill.”

“There’s an ambulance here. Is someone injured?”

“We’re still assessing the scene.”

“The scene. Jesus, what happened?”

“I can’t tell you anything right now. Would you let me handle this, Bill?” Brudos says, planting his hands on his hips, “BOI doesn’t have jurisdiction in these cases.”

“What cases?” Bill demands, spreading his hands wildly. “Tell me what the fuck is going on right now, Jerry, or I swear to God-”

“It’s Hannah, all right.” Brudos says, lowering his voice. “She- … Jesus, she-”

Bill stops. Stops moving, stops breathing. He feels a shiver down his spine like the cold finger of death coming to caress him too intimately once again. A ringing swells in his ears, the sound of all the blood rushing from his head. 

Brudos is staring at him haplessly, and Rissel is worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. Both of them too afraid to finish the sentence. 

“Fuck this.” Bill says. 

He shoulders past Brudos before the man can realize he’s in motion. He marches across the yard, ignoring the sheriff’s dismayed curse. His body hums with turns of cold and heat, terror spilling shivers down his arms and legs. 

The front door is painted baby blue. A decorative wreath bears a white ribbon with the inscription:  _ God bless this home. _ How many times had he walked up to this door? How many times had he knocked, and tried not to smile as David opened it? The welcoming embrace had always lasted a few seconds too long, but Hannah never noticed. She had never questioned the way they grew closer and closer over the years, beyond the dedication of friendship. Love makes people blind.

Now, neither of them are ever going to open this door again. 

Bill stops at the threshold, his fingers white-knuckled around the doorframe. His pulse pounds dully in his ears, nausea rising. 

Hannah lays sprawled on the couch in her nightgown, her long hair undone around her pale face. Her eyes are shut, mouth lax, and she could have looked peaceful except for the white foam gathering at the corners of her lips. A bottle of pills is overturned, blue tablets dappling the taupe carpeting like teardrops from heaven. 

Bill stands still for a long time, not moving, his lungs shuddering like he’s breathing down against a knife until the nausea curdling in his stomach forces him to stumble down the front steps into the yard and vomit on the grass. In three violent heaves, his stomach is empty, and he’s sinking down to the ground on his backside. 

“I told you I couldn’t tell you right now. Jesus Christ, Bill.” Brudos’ voice cuts through the dull roar of horror in Bill’s ears. 

“Fuck off, Jerry.”

Brudos offers his hand, but Bill waves it off as he climbs to his feet. 

“You want the nurse to look at you?”

“I’m fine.” Bill chokes out, his throat still stinging with bile. “Where’s her son? Where’s Brian?”

Brudos points to one of the police vehicles. The back door is standing open, and another deputy is sitting with Brian. 

Bill strides across the yard to the car, and ducks down to look inside. 

“Hey, Brian.”

Brian doesn’t look up from the stuffed bear he’s holding in his lap. 

Bill shoots the deputy a glance. “A minute?”

The man gets out of the car and joins Bill on the other side of the vehicle. 

“Have you contacted her parents?”

“We’re trying to reach them. They live all the way in Fredericksburg.” The deputy says. 

“Where’s the kid going tonight?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

Bill nods. “I can take him. My wife and I are friends of the family. He knows us.”

“Probably for the best.” The deputy agrees, “I’ll talk to Sheriff Brudos, let him know what’s going on.”

They nod in agreement and fall silent as they regard Brian staring at his teddy bear with a blank, dazed expression. 

“Poor kid.” The deputy mutters, “First his dad, now his mom.”

Bill’s stomach threatens to revolt again, and he presses a hand over his mouth. 

“I’m gonna go talk to the sheriff.” The deputy says, putting a hand on Bill’s shoulder. “Thanks for stepping up. Your partner would have been real grateful.”

As the man walks away, Bill presses his eyes shut against the sting of humiliated tears.  _ The hero again. Great.  _

Drawing in a deep breath, he slides into the backseat of the car next to Brian, and puts a tentative hand on the kid’s shoulder. 

“Hey, buddy, how about spending the night with me and Aunt Nancy, huh?”

Brian doesn’t answer for a long moment. Then as his eyes begin to fill with tears, he turns to throw himself into Bill’s chest.

Bill wraps his arms around the small boy’s body, and holds him close, so tightly that his arms begin to tremble. But Brian doesn’t protest. They cling to each other for a long time. 

^^^

In the dream in which Bill is back at the Shaw mansion, he’s running down the long, vacant corridors, endless hallways that seem to stretch on forever into an indecipherable maze. He runs and runs, and someone is always behind him. 

When at long last he finds his way out of the mansion and into the surrounding forest, he makes it no more than a few yards before a vicious shout stops him, “Get on your knees! Get on your fucking knees!” 

He falls down with his knees in the dirt and his hands raised toward the sky. He’s afraid, not of death but of the truth. 

David is standing in front of him, holding his pistol outstretched. His shirt is open, exposing the gaping gunshot wound and the blood pouring in black, moonlit excess down his belly. His eyes well with tears that he never cries. 

“David, please.” Bill whispers, “Please.”

David presses the gun to his forehead. “Look what you did to me, you stupid son of a bitch. Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?”

Bill wakes with that sense of falling, as if David had shot him and deposited his body off the top of a cliff. His heart is thundering in his chest, his body shivering with icy ripples of horror. Sweat plasters his undershirt to his chest. The sheet on top of him may well have been a lead weight for the way it’s suffocating him. 

Desperately kicking back the duvet, Bill stumbles out of bed, and into the hallway. Nancy stirs at his abrupt departure, but he pulls the bedroom door closed behind him before either of them can acknowledge his distress. 

He turns on the light in the kitchen to dispel the lingering, haunted shroud of his dreams. The sky beyond the window is still inky black, and a glance at the wall clock tells him that it’s just past midnight. He’s facing a long, sleepless night. 

He smokes two cigarettes at the kitchen table that manage to slacken the painful tension in his chest, but his mind buzzes with the details of the vivid dream. 

_ I need a fucking drink. Just one to get my head right.  _ He thinks, rubbing a hand over his forehead. Momentarily, he wishes to God that he hadn’t poured away his stash. 

A muted squeak of a floorboard draws his weary gaze to the doorway of the kitchen. 

Brian lingers at the threshold, his teddy bear dangling from his fist by its leg. The boy’s eyes are wide and sleepless in the jaundiced, yellow light radiating from above the kitchen sink.

“Hey, kid. You couldn’t sleep either?” Bill asks. 

Brian just shakes his head. 

“C’mere.” Bill says, waving for him to come closer. 

Brian crosses the kitchen with his chin lowered bashfully. When he gets close, Bill reaches out to gently pat his cheek. 

“You hungry?” Bill asks. 

Brian doesn’t answer. He’s staring dejectedly at his feet. 

“If I give you a glass of milk, you have to promise not to tell Nancy.”

This suggestion earns Bill a faint smile. He leaves his cigarette in the ashtray, and retrieves the bottle of milk from the refrigerator. He pours out a cup for Brian, and takes a swig directly from the bottle, casting Brian a conspiratorial wink. 

Brian’s mouth purses against a widening smile. 

“Here you go.” Bill says, setting the glass on the table. He pulls the chair out for Brian. “Sit down here and drink it. I can’t have you spilling it.”

Brian climbs up into the chair, and takes a long drink of the milk. His upper lip comes away lined with white. 

Bill sinks wearily to his chair, watching the boy drink his milk while he smokes the last of his cigarette. Neither of them speak, but he can sense their shared sadness underneath. Bill quietly wonders just how much Brian understands of what is going on, or if he thinks his mom is going to awake from her sleep one day soon and walk back through the door. 

They’re burying Hannah tomorrow without rite or ritual, and Bill doesn’t know how to tell the kid that he’s an orphan. Not only that, but he’s never going to see his mom again, not even in Heaven. Suicide is a sin according to the Catholic church; an unforgivable sin. As soon as she swallowed those pills, she damned herself to an eternity in Hell. Worst of all, that Bill drove her there; and her husband too, the undeserving receptacle for his ugly, wicked needs. 

One day, will the truth all come out the way Tuck’s letter predicts it will? Or in ten years, is Brian still going to be looking at him as if he’s a hero, the man who swooped in to save him when both his parents died? Bill can hardly stomach the thought of either future coming to pass. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to one of my favorite Richard Siken poems, Snow and Dirty Rain, for the title of this chapter. I'm always trying to emulate him even just a little ❤


	8. through a glass darkly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Bill's guilt overwhelms him, Holden makes himself an integral and irreversible factor in the search for redemption.

Hannah Ashford is buried without Catholic rite in Clareview Cemetery on the edge of town, so named for its proximity to the titular lake. Only non-religious folks or those not worthy of a Catholic cemetery are laid to rest here, an untended pasture of small headstones and rough, wooden crosses barely protected from the elements by a disheveled fence. 

Past the pines lining the lake, Bill can see the placid, clear blue surface of the water. He focuses on its shimmer as he, Holden, Hannah’s brother, and her father carry the casket to the dug out plot. 

Once the casket is down in the hole, they quietly shovel the dirt on top. The patter of falling earth rasps against the hushed lull of the wind and the quiet whimper of Hannah’s mother breaking down into tears. There’s no last words, no prayers, no rituals. And hardly any mourners as there had been at David’s funeral. 

Bill is surprised that Holden came considering the church’s stance on people who take their own lives, but he’s grateful since the priest’s presence might somehow mitigate the dreadfulness of today’s proceedings. Hannah’s devastated parents need a compassionate set of hands to bless them after watching their daughter’s soul go into eternity without Catholic considerations. 

The burial process doesn’t take long. Once the earth is patted flat over the grave, everyone stands in a small string beside the dirt with their hands clasped together. Bill peeks his eyes open to glimpse Holden’s mouth silently moving. It makes his chest hurt knowing a secretive prayer for a soul as tormented as Hannah’s is all a priest can offer. 

Once it’s done, Bill walks past the gate to smoke a cigarette in privacy. A hot breeze bustles across the field, snatching away puffs of smoke, as he watches Nancy converse with Hannah’s parents while she holds Brian’s hand. 

Holden picks his way among the headstones with his cassock fluttering in the wind. His cheeks are pink with exertion by the time he reaches Bill. 

“Father,” Bill says, taking his cigarette from his mouth. 

“Please, I’m not your priest today.” Holden says, “I’m a mourner like the rest of you, devastated by what we’ve lost.”

Bill shakes his head. 

“What?”

“Holden, you’re more a priest today then you’ve ever been inside that church.” Bill says, “Those people needed you, and you were here. You’re the real hero in this situation. I know the kind of negativity you could receive for attending the funeral of a suicide victim.”

“The church and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on certain things.”

“No?”

“No. Hannah should be at rest beside her husband, who she obviously loved more than this life.” Holden says, his brow knitting fiercely. “There’s a fine line between martyrdom and suicide.”

“You should probably keep that to yourself.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I’m not a theologian. But nothing about her death was noble or sacrificial. It was …”

“Was what?” 

Bill shakes his head again, and puffs hard on his cigarette. “Nevermind.”

The wind toys with Holden’s hair, pulling slicked back strands across his forehead. He smooths it back with delicate fingers as he turns to squint at the cemetery where Nancy is bending to give Brian a hug. 

“They’ve bonded well.” He remarks. 

Bill shrugs. “It’s what she always wanted. Of course, not under these circumstances, but-”

“It’s good you’ve taken him in.” 

“Trust me, that wasn’t noble either.”

Holden casts him a curious gaze. “Then what was it?”

“Remember when you told me everything is a penance for you?” 

“Yes.”

“My life is starting to feel that way.”

Holden’s frown deepens, and he puts a gentle hand on Bill’s arm. “Bill, you can’t blame yourself for this.”

“I can’t?” Bill says, the words biting out harshly. “You don’t know shit, Holden. You have no fucking idea what I’ve done, or what-”

Holden’s hand retracts quickly, his face pinching with a wounded grimace. 

“I’m sorry.” Bill whispers, rubbing at his eyes. “Forgive me, Father, I … I didn’t mean to speak that way to you.”

“You’re forgiven.” Holden murmurs without hesitation.

They’re quiet for another moment, watching the thick clouds rolling over the small cemetery block out the sunlight. 

Bill scuffs his boot into a wild tuft of grass, and clears his throat. “You said at David’s funeral that it was okay to question God.”

“Yes.”

“Well, good. Because I’m questioning Him right now. If this is God’s plan then … I don’t know. I don’t know if I believe in Him the way I should.”

“What I meant was that, as humans, we are always looking for a way to understand the things that seem inscrutable. As the Apostle Paul said, ‘For now we see through a glass darkly.’ It doesn’t make us bad people for being unable to glimpse past the curtain of this temporal earth to eternity when something terrible happens. But, if anything, it should strengthen our faith even more because we have to depend on God to show us the way forward - not on our wavering strength.”

Bill scoffs. “That’s very … poetic, Father.”

“I wasn’t attempting poeticism. It’s the nature of faith.”

Bill studies Holden’s solemn, blue eyes for a long moment, searching them for something that might pull him up out of the despair he feels. There’s something like religion in his eyes that had always entranced Bill; and now he’s not sure if he ever believed in God’s redemptive love as much as he believed in Holden’s. 

He drops his cigarette to the ground, and crushes it. 

“I should get back to Nancy.” He says. 

“See you at Mass?”

Bill’s eyes linger on him for a moment before he moves past the cemetery gate without answering. 

Later, as he and Nancy are driving home, Bill glances in the rearview mirror to see Brian napping against the car door with his ever present teddy bear tucked under his chin. 

“So,” He says, keeping his voice down, “what did Mr. and Mrs. Wilmont say? Are they going to seek custody?”

Nancy shakes her head. “I doubt it.”

“Really?”

“They want to be in his life, but Mr. Wilmont has a lot of health problems. Financially, they’re already suffering. And it’s the same situation with Hannah’s brother and his wife. They already have five children to feed. I told them it wouldn’t be fair to them or Brian to put that responsibility on their shoulders.”

Bill releases a sharp sigh, and shakes his head. 

“What?” Nancy asks. 

“You took that upon yourself, huh?”

“It was not selfish.” Nancy protests, her cheeks flushing. “Of course I’ve loved having Brian with us, and that means I have his best interests in mind. Hannah’s parents are not in any shape to care for a young child.”

Bill adjusts his grip on the wheel, and glares at the road ahead. 

“I don’t understand you. David was your best friend. Why wouldn’t you want to care for his son?”

“Just forget it.” 

“We have an opportunity here, Bill. Not only to do a world of good for a child who has already suffered immeasurably, but also for David and Hannah. They would be relieved to know that we’re looking after Brian.”

“I said forget it, all right.” Bill says, sharply, casting her a withering glare. 

Nancy’s mouth quivers as she averts her own gaze to the window. She doesn’t argue with him again. 

Bill shoots another glance at the rearview mirror, and a rift of pain and guilt cuts like a blade through his chest. It might as well have been the leather straps of a whip.  _ The boy is going to be his lifelong penance _ , he thinks. As if he deserves anything less. 

^^^

The bedroom down the hallway from he and Nancy’s room, which had once been reserved for the occasional guest and Nancy’s book collection, transforms into a child’s bedroom in a matter of days. 

Nancy drives all the way into Alexandria to visit the larger shopping centers, and purchase all the things she thinks a boy of eight years old might need. Toys, books, clothes, school supplies, until she’s replaced most of the things he likely already owned in the Ashford home with new, shiny accoutrements. Despite the plethora of new toys, Brian clings to his old, stuffed teddy bear like it’s his last lifeline. 

Bill doesn’t mention the strain all of the purchases are putting on their wallet. If they’d been about ten years younger and Nancy was pregnant with their first child rather than them hastily adopting an orphaned, nearly non-verbal eight year old, they would have been gifted all of these accessories at a baby shower. Instead, like everything else in their life, she’s building her motherhood from the ground up. 

She’ll do it with or without his help, he figures. It doesn’t matter that seeing Brian every morning at the breakfast table is slowly clenching down on his soul like a metal vice, or that the thought of shaping a child in his own image is more terrifying than any bank robber he’s faced in his years with the Bureau. She doesn’t want to hear his doubts; at long last, she’s getting what she always wanted. 

Like gradually administered poison, it’s slowly killing him. 

He dreams, but he doesn’t sleep. If he manages to fall into a restless slumber, his mind is immediately invaded by the daunted faces of those he’s wronged - Tuck, Brian, Holden, Hannah, and most of all, David. They’re all saying the same thing:  _ Look at what you’ve done to me.  _

It all boils over one Thursday morning as he’s getting ready to leave for work. Nancy and Brian are finishing up breakfast as he puts on his hat and shoes by the door. 

Nancy gets up to give him a hug before he leaves. Her mouth grazes his cheek chastely, before she beckons for Brian to join them. 

“Brian, come say goodbye to Daddy.”

Brian stares across the kitchen at her for several, tense moments before he gets up and bolts out of the room. 

“Brian!” She calls after him. 

“What is wrong with you?” Bill demands, his chest flooding with fiery anger. 

“What?” She asks, turning back to him with wide, hurt eyes. 

“I’m not his dad. David is dead.”

She flinches, pressing a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry, I just … I thought it seemed natural after-”  
“Natural? There’s nothing natural about this. Both his parents are dead. Do you want to mess that kid up even more than he already is?”

“Okay, I’m sorry. Can you please stop yelling?”

Bill scowls as he yanks his hat down on his forehead. “I need to go before I’m late.”

“Will you try to be on time for dinner?”

He yanks the front door open, and marches out of the house without replying. 

He takes detours after work sometimes when he doesn’t feel like going back into the suffocating atmosphere of this house. He sits in the field behind the burnt-out house, and smokes cigarette after cigarette wishing he had something to drink. The only thing that’s held him back from relapsing thus far is his pride; if he goes back to Paul for more gin, he’ll never hear the end of it. 

But today, he doesn’t give a shit. 

He gets in the car, and drives with his foot heavy on the pedal out of town, down the dirt road lined by thickening forest. When he gets to the Bateson cabin, the yard is vacant except for the flurry of activity in the chicken coop. 

Bill parks by the road, and walks the rest of the way, surveying the quiet property, bleached in morning sunlight with a determined gaze. Paul isn’t sitting in his usual spot on the porch, but he’s bound to have someone around the property to protect the liquor. 

As he draws closer, the front door of the cabin opens, and the young man, Paul’s “apprentice,” that Bill had seen on his last visit here ambles onto the porch. He stops cold when he sees Bill striding across the yard toward him. He opens his mouth to call for help, but Bill pulls his Colt out of his shoulder holster and aims it at his head. His sputtering mouth latches shut. 

Climbing up onto the porch, Bill grasps the handle of his gun with both hands, and holds it three inches from the boy’s forehead.

“Who else is here?” He asks. 

“J-just me … and one other person inside.” The kid whispers, his voice trembling uncontrollably. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

“Just give me what I came for and I won’t have to.”

The apprentice nods, holding his hands aloft in submission. 

“Paul told you not to sell to me anymore, didn’t he?” Bill asks. 

Another tremulous nod. 

“That fucker. Never knows what’s good for him.” Bill says, shaking his head with a sneer. “He should’ve got out while he had the chance.”

“What’re you gonna do?” The kid asks, fearfully. 

“Shut up. Just show me where the gin is and I’ll leave.”

“It’s around back.” 

“Great. Let’s go.” 

The kid keeps his hands raised as Bill shoves him around, and keeps the gun trained on the back of his head. They walk down the porch steps and around the back of the cabin where a shed that’s in better condition than the cabin stands with a padlock on the doors. 

The young apprentice pulls a ring of keys out of his pocket, and unlocks the padlock with trembling hands. Once the chain is off, Bill shoves him aside, and pulls the door open. 

The shed is fully stocked with crates upon crates of liquor, but Bill is aware that it’s only a percentage of the illegal alcohol flowing through Papermill. Paul is a peon, yet being raided by a BOI agent is bound to have an effect. If he does this, there’s no going back. 

The thought makes him hesitate for the space of five seconds before he grabs as many bottles as he can carry without taking his Colt off the boy. 

“I know you’re going to tell Paul about this so there’s no use in ordering you not to.” Bill says. 

He kid gulps. 

Bill pulls his wallet out of his pocket, and offers some of the bills to the kid. “Here. I’m not a thief.”

The apprentice is frowning as he hesitantly reaches out to take the money. 

“Just don’t follow me.” Bill says, hoisting the bottles of gin, “That would be really fucking stupid of you.”

He nods again. 

“Good. Now lay down on the ground on your face.” Bill says, waving the gun at the ground. 

The kid does what he says. 

“Count to one hundred. Then you can get up.”

He hears a muted whisper beginning at one and counting upwards as he turns and walks back across the yard.

Once he’s driving away from the Bateson cabin, he glances over at the bottles of gin sitting in the passenger’s seat, and ignores the small, smothered voice of his conscience that sounds a lot like Holden. Fixing his gaze on the road again, he heads for his quiet spot behind the charred home. 

Sitting in the grass, he gazes out at the storm clouds coming in across the blue sky, and cracks open one of the bottles. 

Wendy will be wondering why he’s not at work soon, and he’ll have to think up a reason why he didn’t show up. 

When he gets home, Nancy may be able to smell the alcohol on his breath. 

The next time he goes to Mass, he’ll have to face Holden knowing he’s unworthy of the priest’s faith in him.

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. All of his efforts at being a good man are for naught now that he drove an innocent woman prematurely to her grave. Now that he’s raising her son as if Brian were his own, taking something that didn’t belong to him - again.

He presses his eyes shut, and lifts the bottle to his lips. 

^^^

Bill’s bitter confidence doesn’t last. 

After quitting alcohol for two months, he drinks too much gin far too quickly. The sloshing daze settles over him quickly, until he’s tumbling back in the grass and looking up at the spinning sky with equal turns of euphoria and rage gathering in his chest. Once he’s too drunk to stand, the churning sinks down into his belly, and he’s sick, incredibly sick. 

He tries to push up onto his feet, but he ends up on his hands and knees, panting and squeezing his eyes shut against the wave of nauseated heat that rolls down his body. He hangs onto the contents of his stomach for barely a minute before he vomits into the grass. 

His ill-gotten gin revolts from his belly in four tremendous heaves. When his stomach stops rejecting the overload of alcohol, and he’s trembling and weak, he falls back against the grass with a whimpered sigh. 

His wet eyelids slide open to the gray clouds above that block out any glimpse of the sun. As the day progressed, the wind got cooler, and though it’s almost noon, the sky looks dusky and dull. He blinks against the cold dapple of raindrops coming down from the puffy clouds as every inch of him shivers, flushed, sick, and utterly disgusted with himself. 

_ Look at what you did to yourself …  _

His vomit is cooling and coagulating in the grass at his elbow. Tears trickle down his temples into his hairline. If he could crawl away into some dark hole and never glimpse the world again, he would be fine with it. 

As it is, he stays behind the barn until his body manages to process whatever alcohol is left in his body enough that he can stand again. 

He goes home because he has nowhere else to go. By now, it’s almost three o’clock. 

Nancy comes running out onto the porch when he arrives, but the glazed fear in her eyes cools as she watches him walk haltingly to the front of the house. He braces a hand against the column that supports the porch overhang, and rubs a hand over his face. 

“Before you saying anything-”

“I have been looking all over for you. Calling everyone. Thinking you were dead in a ditch somewhere!” She cries, a tear streaking quickly down her cheek. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Nance, I’m sorry-”

“Don’t apologize to me.” She snaps, crossing her arms tightly and pacing away from him. “God, Bill. Are you trying to destroy everything? Wendy called - I had to make up some story about you being sick! Sick! Oh, yes - you’re sick all right.”

Bill slowly opens his eyes to look at her, to take the brunt of her wrath without flinching. In doing so, she must see the truth in his glazed eyes. 

“I knew it.” She whispers, swiping angrily at the tear on her cheek. “I knew you were doing it again, Bill. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“No, this is just one day. One bad day.”

“Is it? Really? Or have you been lying to me ever since you got back?”

He swallows hard. His mouth tastes of gin and vomit. He wants to be sick again. 

“That night you stayed with Father Ford …” She whispers, “You weren’t sick then either were you? What did you have to do to convince him to lie to me?”

Bill shakes his head, not offering a reply. He doesn’t want to implicate Holden in his deceit anymore than he has to. 

“Fine.” Nancy says, throwing up her hands in defeat. “Don’t tell me. Lie to me. Tell me the truth. I don’t care anymore. You can sleep on the couch tonight.”

She turns and walks back into the house, letting the door slam shut behind her. 

If he were a better man, he would follow her, and beg her forgiveness. He would fall down at her feet and plead with her to take him back, to see some worth in him; but he hates himself too much right now to entertain the thought, no matter how slim, of her giving it real consideration.

He keeps his distance from her for the rest of the day. Eventually, he calls Wendy to apologize.  _ It just came over me this morning. I’m so sorry. I’ll be back in on Monday.  _ She believes him because she doesn’t know him well enough not to. 

After dinner, which is taken with the utmost silence and solemnity, he takes his relegated position on the couch. Nancy gives Brian a bath, puts him to bed, then locks herself in their bedroom saying she’s going to read a book for the rest of the night before she goes to sleep. 

Bill sits in the living room with the lights off, listening to the house settle in the darkness while he gives little effort in sleeping. His mind is beyond dreams, beyond even the thought of exhaustion. His guilt is rising up to choke him, and he can’t take it. 

He slips out of the house as quietly as he can. The ride into town is brief, yet agonizing. His skin is itching, his wrecked heart wanting to crawl away from his weak and terrible body; and if it cannot, it must find a way to reconcile the two, to bring back some balance before the knowledge of his own impurities well and truly drags him down into the grave with David and Hannah. 

The windows of St. Stephen’s are unlit except for the parsonage. Rain falls in an uneven pattern from the darkening sky, getting heavier by the second, stinging his face when he steps out of the car into it. The flushed heat on his cheeks saps away into a shiver of cold and anticipation. 

He knocks on the door with trembling knuckles, and it takes Holden only a moment to answer. His eyes widen in shock when he sees Bill on his doorstep so late at night.

“Bill.”

“Father.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to say confession.” Bill says, trying to keep his gaze from falling bashfully to the ground. “If you have time.”

“I, uh- … of course.” Holden says, standing back to wave him inside. 

Bill steps into the dry warmth of the parsonage, and glances nervously around the room. Holden’s Bible is open on the coffee table next to a cup of tea. The radio plays symphony music at low volume.

“I’m sorry if I disturbed your night.” 

“Not at all. Let me take your coat and hat.”

Bill shrugs out of the coat, and Holden whisks it from his wrists to hang it on the hook beside the door with his own. 

“Are you all right?” Holden asks, detecting Bill’s minute trembling as he hands over his hat.

Bill gazes at Holden's compassionate eyes and his soft mouth. “No, Father.”

Holden swallows thickly, his eyelashes fluttering with worry. “Let’s go to the confessional.” 

Bill draws in a shaky breath. “No, I uh …”

“Bill, you said you came here to confess.” Holden says, resting a hand on his arm. “You’ll feel better once you unburden yourself and-”

“ _ No. _ ” Bill repeats, anger rising up in his chest. “I won’t, Holden. I’ve been confessing for weeks - for months - and it hasn’t changed a thing.”

“Maybe because you haven’t confessed everything. The whole truth.”

“No, because I’m a terrible person. A fuck-up.” Bill says, harshly, turning away and dragging a coarse hand over his face. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“Then tell me.”

“Yeah, all right. You know what I did today?” Bill demands, spreading his hands desperately. “I didn’t go to work this morning. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I didn’t call my office. I just fucking walked away. Scared the shit out of my wife, my boss. Jesus. And that’s not the best part. You want to know the best fucking part?”

Holden gazes at him somberly, his eyes all wide and glistening with the same undeserving sympathy they always do. Unshaken by Bill’s confession. 

“I went back on my promise.” Bill says, giving a choked laugh. “Some fucking promise that turned out to be. It lasted all of two months.”

Holden’s jaw ripples with slight tension. “You drank again.”

“See, I didn’t even have to tell you. God, Holden, you know. You know who- …  _ what _ I am.”

“Yes. And you’re not a fuck-up.” Holden whispers, gently catching Bill by the elbow again. “You’re a child of God.”

Bill stares at the floor until it begins to blur, until he feels his guilt gnawing in his belly like some beast come alive within him. 

“Bill, look at me.” Holden murmurs. 

Bill slowly lifts his chin, and takes a staggered step closer to Holden. Their bodies are nearly touching; Holden’s hands on him are like cold fire, his eyes like a long-burning, blue flame. 

“If you repent, God will forgive you.” Holden says, and Bill can’t stop looking at his mouth. 

“I want to do penance.” Bill says, haltingly. 

“Then let’s go to the confessional.”

“What? So you can give me some verses to meditate on and a few Hail Mary’s?” 

“So I can absolve you of your sins.”

“No, Father, I think I … I think I deserve more than that.” Bill says. His fingers feel numb and tingly, whether from the surge of emotion or lingering alcohol, as he lifts them to cradle Holden’s cheeks between his palms. He drags the priest closer, until their noses are almost touching and their breaths are hot between them. “I think I deserve to be punished.”

Holden draws in a hitched breath. His cheeks are hot beneath Bill’s hands, but he doesn’t squirm away. His wide, shimmering eyes stay focused on Bill, reading the brutal guilt etching its way across his face and implicitly understanding the depth of this sudden volition. 

“Bill, are you-”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Bill says, his eyes slipping shut. He bows his forehead against Holden’s, and slips his fingers into the hair at Holden’s nape. “Please, Father. You said the saints’ suffering was for their betterment. You know what I’ve done, what I will do … You know I should suffer more than anyone. So punish me- … in any way you see fit.”

When Bill opens his eyes, Holden’s eyes are squeezed shut, and his dark lashes are lined with moisture. But when his eyelids lift to catch Bill’s burning stare, there’s nothing but resolve inside of them. 

Clutching Bill’s wrist, he pulls out of the embrace, and leads them across the room to the door connecting to the parish. Bill follows him through the shadows that are perforated by moonlight slipping past the stained glass, casting snippets of garish light over the back of Holden’s head. He moves quickly, his deft footfalls barely making a sound beneath the staggered shuffle of Bill’s boots. He doesn’t let go of Bill’s wrist until they reach the door of his office, and he lets them inside. 

Bill eases the door shut behind him though no one else is in the church at this hour. His stomach leaps with dread and exhilaration as Holden goes to the cherrywood cabinet and opens the doors. 

“Go to the desk.” Holden says, his voice almost entirely steady save for a slight tremor at the beginning of the order. “Put your hands flat on the edge.”

Bill does as he’s told. In the faint light stretching past the window of Jesus and the lost sheep, he can see the grooves and ridges of his hands, the blunt knuckles, the short, unkempt nails, the coarse fingers - his hands which have done so much wrong to the people around him. He lays them out in front of him on the smooth surface of Holden’s desk, his pound of flesh that he’s ready to give to assuage his self-loathing. 

Shooting a nervous glance over his shoulder, Bill watches as Holden turns from the cabinet with one of the canes in his hand. It’s long yet slim, more of a switch rather than a cane. It has a slight bend to it when Holden adjusts it in his hands. 

He crosses the room slowly to where Bill stands over the desk. His eyes glimmer like starlight in the darkness of the office. 

“This is going to hurt.” He says, softly. 

“I know. That’s what I want.”

“If you really want to do penance, I can’t stop when it first becomes painful. I need to push you beyond that point.”

Bill gives a slight nod. He wants to beg Holden to just get on with it, but his throat is tied up in knots and his pulse has reached a dull roar in his ears. 

Holden draws in a deep breath as he extends the cane over Bill’s knuckles. His gaze shifts between the offered hands and Bill’s face. 

“You can cry, but don’t move your hands. I could break a finger.”

“Okay.” Bill says, nodding his head impatiently. “Just …”

Holden withdraws the cane, and Bill’s stomach drops again. He can’t stop his eyes from squeezing shut as he sees the thin, shiny rod rise followed by the whistle of it cutting through the air. 

It lands. Hard. Cutting. An explosion of white-hot pain. It hurts as immensely as Holden had suggested though the pain is delayed, his body reeling with shock before it sets in; by then, the cane is coming down again, and he can hear the sickening smack of skin and the dense thump of bone submitting to the punishment. 

For a moment, he can’t breathe. He can feel the cry rising in his belly, but it gets stuck in the back of his throat, leaving his mouth open and hollow. He’s blinking and choking on a gasp when the next strike comes, landing with fiery precision. 

It takes everything within him not to yank his hands away. His body is making it even easier to retreat as his palms are sweating profusely and sliding against the struggling purchase he has on the sleek wood. Bending forward, he braces his palms in place as the cane comes down again, harder than before. 

Finally, the choked cry leaps from his throat, a mutilated sound of pain that he can’t refrain. The tears are instantaneous; no amount of pride could hold them back. The tender skin is screaming in agony, his knuckles aching and pulsing as if they've been shattered. 

But he doesn’t move or open his eyes. He stands steadfastly over the desk as Holden brings down the cane again and again, cruelly persistent and unerring. He counts to ten, trying to swallow down the strangled cries, but the pressure of mounting pain in his chest is too much to bear. When the cane cracks across his hands an eleventh time, he nearly crumples to the ground with a mangled shout, “Jesus. Fuck!”

Holden stops abruptly. 

Bill sways against the desk, blinking against blinding, breathtaking surges of throbbing pain radiating from his hands into the rest of his arms. His heart thunders, alive with adrenaline and agony, the likes of which he hasn’t felt in years. Unquelled humiliation scorches his cheeks, so hot he could burn down into ashes. 

A tear slips from the corner of his eye as Holden jabs the end of the cane underneath his chin and forces his head up. 

“I said you could cry. Not take the Lord’s name in vain.” Holden's voice is so soft, yet full of stern condemnation. 

Swallowing back the acid burn in the back of his throat, Bill forces his voice not to falter, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Holden pulls the cane out from beneath his chin, and Bill’s gaze drops again to the floor. He’s blinded by the moisture in his eyes as the cane resumes across his brutalized knuckles. The pained whimpers come freely now, the last of his pride stripped away. He clings to the edge of the desk, focusing on every strike as it comes, telling himself  _ One more, one more. Just don’t move your fucking hands.  _

The pain intensifies, more than he can bear. He falls to his knees, leaving his hands plastered to the surface of the desk while the rest of his body dangles in a helpless heap. His own sobs echo through his head, a strange foreign sound that’s scraping deep from his chest but has no place in his memory of his voice. 

The beating stops suddenly, and the office is silent except for the strangled, hiccuped rasp of his crying. The fabric of Holden’s cassock rustles, and then he’s on his knees beside Bill, casting aside the cane to drag Bill away from the desk.

Bill collapses into him, burying his face in Holden’s chest, and clutching onto him with both wounded hands. 

“Forgive me, Father.” He cries, delirious with pain and unshackled guilt surging up through his chest, trying to vomit itself free with the gin. “Forgive me, forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven,” Holden says, fiercely, running soothing fingers through Bill’s hair. “God forgives you. He loves you. He loves you so much.”

Bill latches on tighter to the firm warmth of Holden’s body. He’s not certain he believes what Holden is saying, but the once insurmountable mountain of his guilt is slowly crumbling. Something about the monstrous pain throbbing in his knuckles feels like relief. And Holden, holding him. God, that feels like relief, too. 

^^^

Bill is asleep on Holden’s couch again. 

After he finished crying into Holden’s chest and composed himself, Holden quietly dried his tears with his handkerchief, and led them back to the parsonage. He used two dishcloths tied with string to pack with ice, and ordered Bill to lay down on the couch with them positioned on his knuckles. 

“If we don’t ice this right away, it’s going to swell up.” Holden had said. 

“They’re going to bruise, that’s for sure.” Bill hadn’t seemed disconcerted by the prospect as he studied his battered knuckles. 

Holden left him to retrieve some water from the kitchen for only a few moments, but when he came back, Bill’s eyes had fallen shut in pure exhaustion. 

Holden studies him now from his recliner, fingers sliding nervously across the rosary beads around his neck. He’s never delivered physical punishment to anyone but himself. It felt different hitting someone else and watching the pain register on Bill’s face - strangely satisfying. 

He keeps having to remind himself that it was a penance Bill requested, which he’s within his rights to do as a Catholic. He confessed his sin, and Holden absolved him. Even if it wasn’t the most orthodox confession, the disjointed details still mostly fit the descriptor. So why is the adrenaline still coursing through his veins and making his chest pound? Why did he relish that moment so deeply when Bill crumbled to his knees - when he fell into Holden’s arms, pliant and open, raw and entirely broken? 

Rising from the recliner, Holden paces in front of the couch. 

He’s in a position again where he needs to call Nancy and tell her where her husband is, and decide whether or not he should lie; but he wants to push that decision off as long as he can. A part of him, quivering just above the vicious thing inside him that enjoyed what he just did, wants more so to take care of Bill in the aftermath - to remove his clothes, bathe the lingering gin, sweat, and vomit from his body, and put him into bed with his skin soft, clean, and warm so that he can rest. He wants, just for tonight, to hold onto the vulnerability and helplessness Bill revealed. He has a feeling, come Sunday Mass, Bill will have erected his walls again. 

So Holden waits. He watches Bill sleep until he can’t stop himself. 

Sitting down on the edge of the couch, he traces the details of Bill’s face with his gaze, then with the tips of his fingers ever so gently - along the sharp edge of his stubbled jawline, his cheek still flushed hot from crying, his forehead only free of its perpetual scowl in sleep. Bill hardly stirs from within the clutches of sleep, and Holden bends closer, tracing the puckered bow of Bill’s upper lip and then the relaxed swell of the lower lip with his thumb. 

He retracts his hand, muttering a quiet curse. Pressing his eyes shut, he drags the thumb across his own mouth, the slightest transference of saliva and warmth. Then he pulls away entirely, disgusted with himself. 

He calls Nancy a few minutes later. 

“Hello?” This time, the worry in her voice is concealed by frustration. 

“Mrs. Tench, it’s Father Ford.”

A beat of silence from the other end of the line. “He’s with you?”

“Yes.”

“Drunk?”

“A little. He came to confess.”

Nancy draws in a shaky breath. “Good. I suppose that’s all I can ask.”

“He’s resting now. I can send him on his way if you like, but-”

“Well, to be honest, Father, I was angry. We had a fight about the, you know … the drinking, and I told him to sleep on the couch.”

“I see.”

“That’s wrong, isn’t it?” She whispers, her voice growing tearful. “But, I was just so angry.”

“It’s not wrong to give yourself some distance to sort out your emotions.” Holden says, “It seems like you both needed it since he’s here with me.”

Nancy goes quiet on the other side of the telephone. 

“He was very upset.” Holden says, gently. “Overwhelmed with guilt for going back to the liquor.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“You don’t believe his penitence?”

“We’ve been married for fifteen years, Father. The apologies start blurring together after a time.”

Holden figures it’s too late and too complicated to try to persuade her of just how burdened with guilt Bill was when he arrived here. They hang up with briefly exchanged good-byes, and he goes back into the living room. 

Ignoring the rumblings of his own conscience, he looks at Bill sprawled on his couch for the second time, and decides that if it keeps happening, it must be a part of God’s plan. Bill is supposed to be here in his life, on his couch, looking at him with those pale, sad eyes, and begging Holden to absolve him. Maybe it’s a test, not only to see if he can withstand the temptations that Bill makes him want to give into, but to force Bill to rise to the challenge of being a good man. God-given suffering for the betterment of both their souls. Divine intervention. The sweetest agony.

Holden sits back down in the recliner to watch Bill sleep until his own exhaustion overcomes him. Tonight, he doesn’t dream at all. 


	9. casualties of a civil war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two separate attacks expose Papermill's dark underbelly.

Bill wakes to the smell of coffee and breakfast. Sometime in the night, Holden had drawn a blanket over him. The next thing he notices aside from the smell of sizzling sausage is the low thrum of pain in his knuckles. 

Sitting up slowly, he pushes aside the blanket, and braces his elbows against his knees. His hands are discolored, varying shades of deep pink, purple, and blue. The areas over the knuckles are slightly swollen despite the quick application of ice. It hurts to extend and move his fingers.

“Good morning.”

Bill looks up sharply to see Holden standing in the doorway of the kitchen in his blacks. He looks younger without the cassock. In the morning sunlight swamping the apartment, the dark shadow of a vengeful disciplinarian is entirely gone, replaced by God’s sweet servant, all bright blue eyes and blushing cheeks. The difference is startling. 

“How are they?” Holden asks, edging closer with a worried frown. 

“Sore, but bearable.”

Holden nods, his expression placid except for the glimmer of regret in his eyes. 

“It’s fine.” Bill says, hastily, rising from the couch. “I’ve lived through worse.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Yeah, well I got shot in the back in Germany at twenty-two. Could’ve died - felt like I was going to.”

“That  _ does _ sound worse.” Holden allows, a smile tugging at his mouth. 

“It was pure torture.” Bill says, glancing down at his bruised hands. “This is just …”

“Just what?”

“Different.”

They gaze at each other quietly for a long moment before Bill feels his cheeks growing hot beneath Holden’s scrutiny. Whatever alcohol had still been in him last night had faded the sharp edges of memory, but he’s far too aware of just how much of himself he’d exposed. He’s never cried in front of another man like that before, and the recollection is making his gut twist with humiliation despite Holden’s caring, non-judgemental nature. 

“I should be getting along.”

“I was just making breakfast.” Holden says, “Let me get you a cup of coffee.”

“No, I’m fine. I should go. I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

“Are you sure?”

“I should go home to my wife.” Bill says, and the way his words land in the air between them makes it feel like they’ve both done something horrible. 

Holden glances away, the color on his cheeks rising. “Of course. You owe her an apology.”

“Yeah, more than one.”

Bill grabs his coat and hat from the hook, and pulls the front door open. 

“Bill?”

He pauses, his neck stiffening at the tender tone of Holden’s voice. He turns back around slowly as Holden draws closer. 

“Allowing yourself to be helpless and vulnerable is difficult - before God, I mean. It was important for the healing of your soul to do it.”

“Holden, I-”

“We don’t have to talk about it.” Holden says, grasping Bill’s elbow gently. “After today, if you don’t want to. If you got out of it what you needed … but if not-”

Bill catches Holden’s intense stare. There’s something else unraveling behind his stammered explanation, a hesitance that’s disconcerting compared to his confidence behind the pulpit or a confessional curtain. 

“If not?” Bill echoes. 

“Then I’m here. Always.” 

Bill swallows hard, and gives a stiff nod. 

Once he’s driving down the road toward home, he lights a cigarette and hopes the nicotine will clear his head. He can’t tell anymore what’s what - if Holden’s invitation was a personal one, or the gracious offering of a priest; if he approves of the beating he’d dealt out or if he regrets it. 

Mostly, he can’t understand his own body and soul’s yearnings, the way he’d given over control of himself to Holden so easily after he’s spent years trying to master himself, his anger, his drinking, and his desires.

It’s a feeling he could get drunk on, he realizes. The thought is exhilaratingly terrifying. 

^^^

Bill spends most of the weekend avoiding Nancy. Jim comes over to help him mend the fence along their property line where a buck had ripped through a few nights ago, and he uses the manual labor as an excuse for his brutalized hands.

Nancy doesn’t ask anymore questions. She doesn’t look for any of the apologies that he owes her either, and he doesn’t attempt to extend them; they both gave up on honest conversations awhile ago. 

He’s relieved to return to work on Monday morning. He and Wendy have been swept into a massive embezzlement case that’s been demanding every scrap of his attention, obscuring Papermill from his mind with the rush and dazzle of D.C.’s big city workings for a few blissful hours. 

That evening, he’s driving home when he glimpses a car pull out of the treeline and onto the road ahead of him. Confusion and trepidation collide in his chest as the car drives towards him, dangerously occupying his lane rather than it’s own. He eases down on the brake, hoping the guy is just drunk and will swerve out of the way. 

Instead, the car abruptly swings diagonally across the road to cut him off. 

The tires squeal hoarsely as he stomps on the brake pedal. The car comes to a jolting halt. Gripping the wheel, he stares at the black Buick squatted ahead of him with his heart thudding. 

The doors of the Buick open, and two men wearing bandanas across their faces step out. One of them is toting a tommy gun. 

“Get out of the car!” The order is shouted gruffly from across the pavement. “Toss your gun out the window first.”

Bill slides his Colt out of his shoulder holster, and drops it gingerly out the window.

It’s no use being the hero in these scenarios. He’s outnumbered and outgunned. If they want to rob him, fine. He doesn’t have much cash on him, and his car isn’t worth jacking. He doesn’t have anything of value on him. Best to just get it over with without earning himself a fine shiner on his eye. 

He eases the door open, and climbs out with both hands raised. The motion causes his coat lapels to drape back, revealing his badge. 

“You boys sure you want to rob a federal agent?” He asks. 

The man who had ordered him out of the car is taller than Bill by at least two inches. With his hat pulled low and his bandana tightly tied over his nose, the only thing visible is his pinched eyes and dark brows. Bill doesn’t recognize either feature as he draws closer. 

“We know who you are.” He says, his voice low and muffled behind the bandana. 

Bill frowns as his confidence that this is a simple mugging flags. “Who sent you?”

The bigger man nods for his partner to join him. The second thug pulls a white sack out of his pocket. 

“Who do you think?” He asks. 

_ Fuck.  _ Bill thinks. 

He’s already screwed, but he decides to make a run for it anyway. He makes it no more than a few yards before he’s tackled brutally to the ground, his face shoved into cold, rocky dirt. In the ensuing struggle, he manages to kick his feet uselessly and elbow the bigger man in the stomach before the bag goes over his head. 

The inside of the sack smells like earth and mold. It plasters to his mouth as he tries to suck in a breath, and gets all humid and suffocating when he exhales a staggered cry. Next, he’s punched in the stomach, and the oxygen is violently robbed from his lungs. Reeling, he can’t put up a fight as the two men drag him off the road and into the treeline. 

They take him a few yards from the road, and throw him to the ground. He lands with a grunt, tries to pick himself up, and is immediately kicked in the ribs by a massive boot that feels like a sledgehammer crushing his bones. He sinks to the ground, groaning in pain as dizzying agony surges through his body. 

They tie his hands quickly, but leave his feet free, assured of their incapacitating tactics. He lays on his stomach, squirming against the ropes burning into his wrists even though he knows it’s pointless until a fist lands at the lower right side of his back, in his kidneys. 

“Fuck.” Bill groans, going still against the dirt. 

He breathes in shivering rasps, trying to slow down the pain coursing through his body long enough to think through his predicament. He should be focusing on saving his own life right now, but all he can think is:  _ God, is this it? Is dying in the dirt with a bag over my head what I deserve?  _

“We know who you are, Agent Tench.” The bigger man who first spoke says, “And we know what you’ve been up to.”

“That’s right. Our boss knows.” The second man’s voice is higher, whinier. Reminds Bill of his days in New York. 

“You’re a two-timing son of a bitch, Agent Tench. Getting drunk off the liquor you tried to purge from this town. Seems risky, don’t you think?” The first man says. 

“Pretty fucking risky.” The whiner. “Working for the BOI and being a drunk? Could be career suicide, don’t you think? Especially if someone found out.”

Bill starts to laugh hoarsely from beneath the bag. The effort makes his ribs feel like they’re going to shatter. 

“What the fuck are you laughing at?” The bigger man sounds angry with Bill’s amusement. He uses his boot on Bill’s side again, cutting off the delirious chuckling with a pained grunt. 

“That fucking weasel.” Bill chokes out, tasting blood in his mouth. “He ratted me out, huh?”

“Paul?” The second man says, “Hell, no. His little friend that you threatened at gunpoint. That was really stupid of you, Bill. You are one dumb son of a bitch.”

“Yeah.” Bill mutters, resting his forehead against the ground. His body has gone limp, humming with dull, persistent pain. “You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

“Well, we’re here to teach you a lesson that’s gonna stick.”

Bill presses his eyes shut. He doesn’t try to fight it any longer as two pairs of hands jostle him, pulling him up onto his knees. The smaller guy grips his hair through the bag so that he stays in place while the bigger man pummels him in the face and stomach. 

By the time the beating ends, he’s half-conscious, his entire being throbbing with pain down into his bones, his mouth tasting of blood that’s absorbing and drying into the front of the bag. 

They throw him back down to the ground like a sack of potatoes. 

“If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up like Paul.” The first man says. “Take this as a warning, and stay out of our business.”

Clinging to consciousness, Bill already understands the implications. If he goes out to the Bateson cabin tomorrow, he knows what he’ll find - the place cleaned out, every trace of Paul erased. And in a few months, his body will wash up on the side of Lake Clare. No one will mourn him or miss him. Just another casualty in the civil war of this town. 

Bill lays on the ground for what feels like an hour trying to get his bearings around the onslaught of pain. Every move hurts, but he manages to wiggle onto his knees and pull his head out of the bag. Rocking back on his heels, he bites back a hiss of pain, and scans his surroundings with fuzzy eyes. 

The sunset began while he had the bag over his head. Orange and pink light spills across the branches, a gradual immersion of colors as the sun crawls in a downward slope toward the horizon. Nancy will be wondering where he’s at - again. 

Bill staggers to his feet, and shuffles out onto the road. Nobody hit his car that’s still sitting in the road, but nobody stopped either. 

He wrangles out of the ropes using the metal fender of the car, and climbs behind the wheel. In the rearview mirror, he can see his lower lip split open, dried blood plastered under his nose, and his eye blackened and swelling rapidly. He bares his bloody teeth, noting a few minor chips but nothing broken overall. 

He sinks back in his seat, exhaling a weary sigh. His ribs hurt more than anything. 

_ Jesus.  _ He thinks,  _ So much for white-collar being slow and boring.  _

Lighting a cigarette, he starts the car again, and drives home. When he arrives, Brian is sitting out on the front porch sorting through a collection of rocks he’s been pulling from the yard. His eyes widen when he sees Bill trudging toward the house. 

“What happened to your face?” It’s the most words the kid has spoken to him in weeks. 

Bill pauses on the porch steps, bracing a hand against the railing. “Bad guys.”

“Bad guys? Like robbers?”

“Something like that.”

The front door creaks open, and Nancy marches out with her arms crossed. The frustration on her face immediately melts away into horror when she sees his black eye and the blood dried to his mouth and chin. 

“Oh my God, Bill.” She cries, rushing down the porch steps to him. She cradles his chin in her hand, inspecting the wounds with shimmering eyes. “What happened?”

“I got mugged driving home.”

“And they did this?” She whispers, her fingertips gingerly grazing his eyebrow. 

He winces, squeezing his eyes shut. “You know me, Nance. I had to put up a fight.”

Her tongues click. “My Lord. This is awful. Come inside so I can clean you up.”

Bill waves for Brian to come with them, but the boy is already close on his heels, gaze transfixed on Bill’s battered face. When Nancy leads him into the bathroom, and sits him down on the lid of the toilet seat, Brian lingers in the doorway. 

Nancy gets out alcohol, rags, gauze, and tape. Clutching his chin, she tilts his head back and dabs at the worst of the blood with the wet washcloth, making it impossible for him to not look directly back at her. Her eyelids are lowered in concentration, teeth tucked anxiously against her lower lip. 

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” He murmurs. 

She gives a choked laugh. “Yeah, a little.”

“This is nothing compared to that.” 

Her eyes flick up to meet his, softening with some kind of relief. The contrast is reassuring. The last time she nursed his wounds, he was lying in a triage tent in Germany thinking he was going to be paralyzed for the rest of his life - or worse yet, die - after taking a bullet to the back. 

“It’s still frightening.” She says, “Did you get a good look at them?”

“No. They had bandanas over their faces.”

“You didn’t recognize them?”

“No. It was dusk, they had their faces covered. They put a bag over my head.”

She shakes her head, cheeks blushing with anger. “We need to talk to Sheriff Brudos.”

“And tell him what? That I got the shit kicked out of me by some thugs I’ll never be able to identify?”

“Your pride? Is that what this is really about?” She asks, her eyebrow cocking pointedly. 

When he doesn’t answer, she sets aside the damp rag, and goes in with the alcohol. 

“Fuck.” He whispers, recoiling from the sting sinking down through lacerated skin. 

She shoots him a narrowed glance at the language, and he purses his mouth shut until she’s done. 

Leaning back, she crosses her arms and scrutinizes his swelling eye. 

“We should get some ice.” She says. 

“Good idea.”

She doesn’t press for anymore details. That night, after he crawls laboriously into bed, trying to hide the fact that his ribs might be fractured, she curls up next to him. He nestles his head into her chest, and she wraps both arms around his shoulders. 

_ They’re good at this,  _ he thinks.  _ Hanging onto each other in the aftermath.  _

He wonders then if she regrets that version of herself that was a young, compassionate nurse during the war, a naïve child who fell for the first man she pulled from the grave and healed with her kind touch. 

He’s certain he regrets it. It seems that they’re only good for each other when the other is half dead and bleeding. Their relationship, forged in the crucible of war, had never been meant to outlast the bloody fields of Germany. 

^^^

Bill’s face looks worse in the morning. He tries not to look in the mirror while he gets ready for work the next day against Nancy’s protests. She wanted him to stay home and rest, but he reminds her that he’d already missed two days the week prior. She doesn’t say anything more, content to let that particular subject drop. 

When he gets to the DOJ building half an hour later, the early morning bustle of the fraud department comes to a standstill. Wendy meets his gaze from across the room, and comes to a stop with the coffee carafe in one hand and her mug in the other.

Clearing his throat, Bill walks past the desks of the other bewildered agents as casually as he can manage until he reaches Wendy. 

“My God. You look like hell.” She says. 

“Thanks.”

“What happened?”

Bill nods at her office door standing ajar. “Let’s talk in private.”

Wendy finishes fixing her coffee, and they go into her office.

Easing the door shut, Bill hesitates to sit down. His stomach is churning because he knows what he has to do. 

“Is this Gunn?” Wendy asks, immediately. 

“Yes. Two thugs jumped me last night when I was driving home from work. At first I thought it was just a robbery, but they made it clear it wasn’t.”

“Jesus. Does he know?” She asks, racing conclusions gathering behind her hazel eyes. “How could he know? We’ve been so careful. This could ruin everything.”

“He doesn’t know about the operation.” Bill says, “He probably doesn’t even know that you’re involved.”

Wendy pauses, her brow furrowing. “Then why the attack?”

Bill looks down at his feet, shame coiling in his gut. Pushing away from the door, he crosses the room to where she’s leaning against her desk, and forces himself to meet her gaze. 

“A couple months ago, when you said you needed to trust me-”

“Yes?”

“Well, you can trust me. But I have to tell you something that might make you think you can’t.”

She blinks, confusion gathering in the crease between her brows. “What is it?”

“There’s a seller in Papermill named Paul Bateson. Low-level guy. Sells out of the shed in his backyard.”

“You’ve never told me about him.”

“Yeah, well. You’re going to hear about him eventually. They’re going to be pulling his body out of Lake Clare one of these days.”

“Bill, what are you talking about?” Wendy presses, her tone growing strident. 

“We had an arrangement. He was a rat, and I would buy from him and keep his name out of these offices. It was fine up until a couple months ago when I told him I was quitting.”

Wendy’s eyes widen. Her mouth moves wordlessly for a long moment before it pinches shut. He can see her processing, thoughts and conclusions turning behind her eyes. 

“You  _ bought  _ from him?” Wendy asks, slowly, as if the implications have yet to sink in. 

“Yes. I’m an alcoholic. All right?” He says it sharply, as quickly as he can, like he’s spitting needles past his teeth. “I did quit, but I had a relapse last week. I might have threatened one of Paul’s guys to get to the liquor.”

“Might have?”

“Yeah. Might have been at gunpoint. He squealed… apparently.”

Wendy absorbs this information in silence. Her gaze stays fixed on the wall ahead until it circles worriedly back to him. 

“This is … bad. You understand how this could impact the case we bring against Gunn, don’t you?”

He nods, lowering his head. 

“If anyone found out …”

“They don’t have to.”

“So lie?” She asks, lifting her shoulders. “That makes us just as corrupt as the rest of them.”

“Does it? I’m trying, Wendy. I’m trying to quit, but you have no fucking idea what I’ve been through in the past six months. If you’d been through what I have, you would want to drink too.”

She hesitates, some of the righteous anger on her face fading. She shakes her head, and focuses on the wall straight ahead rather than his black-and-blue face. 

He leans against the desk beside her, and crosses his arms. “I understand if you don’t want me involved in the case anymore.”

“Please.” Wendy says, giving a caustic chuckle. “Don’t pretend to be a martyr, Bill. I need you for this case. We both know that.”

He glances over at her, and she’s scowling again. 

“I’m a woman in the BOI.” She says, shaking her head. “They gave me this position because my father was an agent, and he was close with Hoover before he died. They want to tuck me away in white-collar and take all the glory for themselves. Without you, my case doesn’t hold water. They respect you. Me … I’m just the fateful product of nepotism - in a skirt, no less.”

“I don’t see you that way, Wendy.”

“Thanks.” She mutters, pushing away from the desk, and circling around to sit in her chair with her shoulders having regained their regal posture. “I appreciate your honesty. We should keep moving forward. If anything, this proves just how necessary it is for us to stop Gunn. If he has no qualms about attacking a federal agent, God knows what else he’s willing to do.”

Bill agrees with relief flooding his veins. He’d never expected Wendy to take his honesty and turn it over to their superiors, but he had feared that she would lose respect for him entirely. He cares about what she thinks of him, he realizes. It’s just another expectation piled on with the rest that he doesn’t know if he’s capable of meeting. 

^^^

On Wednesday afternoon, Holden is trying to prepare for Sunday Mass when he goes into his office to retrieve a book from his collection. He has most of the greatest works ever written by clergymen and theologians, a vast array of knowledge that should have been able to scratch the surface of humanity’s deepest, darkest urges. In them, he’s always searching for himself, his place among the saints and martyrs. 

His fingers wander along the spines of the books, but his gaze is distracted by the cherrywood cabinet along the adjacent wall. The brass handles gleam in the low light seeping past the window. 

Leaving the bookshelf, Holden eases the door of the cabinet open. Instruments of wood and leather gleam from the shadowy recesses of the cabinet, drawing his gaze along the length of the collection until it reaches the whip at the end. He reaches out to pinch one of the leather straps between his fingers, and suppresses a sigh.

Where he had once thought only of applying the implement to his own wayward skin and praying for redemption, he can now only recall Bill hunched over his desk, hands and soul bared. It takes little imagination to conjure the idea of his shirt removed, bare skin rippling, clenching, and welting beneath the strike of the whip, the cries that might come out of him-

Holden pushes the door shut on that branching thought with a sharp inhale. He presses his forehead against the polished surface for a long moment, reigning in his thoughts, the heated impulses racing through his belly. 

_ If Bill really is his trial by fire, he’s already failing miserably.  _

Holden leaves behind his sermon plans and the cabinet, and puts on his cassock to take a walk. When reading the Bible, preparing for Mass, visiting the sick and elderly, and counseling the confused aren’t enough to keep his thoughts pure and holy, he can always count on a long walk to burn the excess energy from his body. 

Today, the sky is crisp blue without a hint of clouds. The sunlight dazzling the world in blinding illumination is brutal, urging sweat to trickle down his temples almost as soon as he goes out the door. He decides to make it a quick walk that serves two purposes - clear his mind, and fetch some flour from the general store since he’s out in his apartment. 

He walks into downtown, a brief distance that takes him no more than five minutes. In the middle of the week at midday, the streets are mostly quiet and subdued, which makes the commotion unfolding in front of the clothing boutique across the street startlingly obvious. 

Holden frowns as he comes around the corner to glimpse a crowd of people clumped around the sidewalk, all of them shouting in unison. From a distance, it has the essence of a dogfight. 

The hairs on the back of his neck prickles with intuition.  _ Bloodthirst. _ He remembers it well from his days at St. Christopher’s Home for Boys. 

Pulse ticking faster, Holden briskly crosses the street to where the crowd is rapidly growing in numbers. Two men in front of him shift apart, giving him a scarce glimpse of Deputy Rissel and Deputy Watson towering over a figure huddled on the ground, both of them kicking at him viciously. 

Holden breaks into a stride, barely offering an apology as he shoves other people crowding in for a view of the fight out of the way. As he breaks past the initial rings of folks to the center of the brawl, he can see that it’s no fight - at least not a fair fight. 

Jim Barney is curled into a fetal position on the sidewalk while the two deputies kick and punch at him relentlessly. Mary McNeil is standing at Rissel’s elbow, tears streaming down her face as she screams for them to stop. She seems to be the only one interested in ending the brutality; he scans the wild mob of onlookers, and glimpses sheer, delusional joy in their wide eyes and hungry hate foaming at their mouths. 

“Stop! What are you doing?” Holden is moving forward before he can question whether or not he’s capable of physically opposing the two deputies. 

Rissel doesn’t seem to hear him as he approaches, but he whirls around sharply when Holden grabs him by the elbow to yank him away from Jim. 

“I said  _ stop _ !” Holden shouts, shoving Rissell by the shoulder as the man’s face twists with indignation. 

“You stay out of this, Father!” Rissell retorts, closing the space between them in a quick stride that has his toes nearly stepping on Holden’s. “This is a matter for law enforcement to deal with.”

“What law are you enforcing? You’re killing him!” Holden cries, swinging a horrified gaze back to where Watson hasn’t stopped pummeling Barney. 

Jim’s body has gone almost entirely limp, and Holden can see that blood is pouring from multiple wounds on his face. 

“Why do you care about this nigger’s life?” Rissell says. He plants a hand in the middle of Holden’s chest and shoves him backwards. “That’s why nobody wants you in this town, Ford. Because you’re a goddamn nigger-lover. Now get the fuck out of here and stay gone!”

Rissell whirls back around to resume kicking Jim again. 

Holden’s pulse roars in his ears, horror and rage melding into one deafening call to action in his veins. The two deputies don’t frighten him. He’s faced men just as evil and walked away smiling.

Grabbing Rissell again by the shoulder, Holden pushes the deputy out of the way, and straddles Jim’s limp body. Watson, who up until this point had been focused on beating on Jim, already has his fist cocked back when Holden throws himself in the middle of the fight. It swings in a flash to land squarely across Holden’s cheekbone and eye. 

Dizzying pain explodes along the side of Holden’s face, nearly plunging him to the ground. He hunches over Jim’s prone body, holding out one hand to fend off another blow and grasping Jim’s shoulder with the other. 

“Stop! In the name of God, stop!” He cries. 

The shouting and chanting cuts off abruptly, dwindling into disgruntled whispers and the low sound of Mary crying. A humid breeze drifts down the street, but Holden can’t feel it’s warmth any longer. He’s shuddering with cold sweat and adrenaline that’s still dulling the pain radiating from his eye. He blinks, vision blackening beneath the drip of blood and the sting of tears. 

They’re all staring at him in shock and disgust. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Rissell asks, his tone rife with anger, yet faltering in bewilderment. 

“I told you stop hitting him.” Holden says, his voice low, raw, and trembling. “You didn’t. So if you want to hit him again, you’re going to have to hit me first. Your priest, appointed by God, protected by the Diocese of Arlington, and the Vatican itself.”

Rissell takes a shuffled step backwards, his mouth moving in wordless disbelief for a long moment. 

“No? You don’t want to hit me?” Holden asks, “Your friend already took his shot. Why don’t you take yours and see what happens?”

The street is utterly quiet. The crowd is already dispersing, having lost interest the moment white blood was spilled. Finally, Watson grunts from the back of his throat. “Come on, Monte. It isn’t worth it.”

Holden shifts his gaze to Watson who is looking at the ground in shame. Pity that it’s only shame over hitting a priest. 

“Forgive me, Father.” Watson says, rubbing a hand through his hair and the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to hit you.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” Holden replies, conjuring a thin smile. 

Flushing red, Watson shoulders his way past the remaining crowd of people, and marches off down the street. 

“Well, this ain’t the Vatican.” Rissell says, his mouth curling into a sneer. “Here, in America, the police lay down the law, not the church.”

“What law did you have to lay down in beating an innocent man half to death?”

“He laid hands on Mrs. McNeil, here-”

“I tripped coming out of the store, and he was trying to help me!” Mary interrupts, smearing tears from her cheek with a hasty hand. “I tried to tell you two oafs that before you attacked him.”

Rissell shoots her a glare. “That isn’t what we saw. He touched you. You really want a nigger touching you?”

“He’s a decent man.” Mary shoots back, her eyes shimmering with anger. “More decent than the rest of the people in this godforsaken town. Nobody else would have stopped to help me.”

“Well, then maybe you should have listened to poor Mrs. Ashford before you drove her to her grave and left when you should’ve.”

Mary’s mouth slips open, and a tear breaks free of her eyelashes. 

“Fuck this.” Rissell mutters, shifting his gaze between Holden and Mary with disdain. He swivels and marches down the sidewalk in the direction of the sheriff’s office where Watson had retreated. 

Holden sinks down to his knees beside Jim, and pulls the man carefully onto his back. 

“Jim, can you hear me?” He whispers, touching Jim’s bloodied cheek gently. “Open your eyes.”

Jim’s eyelids flutter. A pained groan stretches from his throat, but the sign of life is a relief to the fear in Holden’s chest. 

“We need to get him to a doctor.” Holden says, glancing up at Mary. 

She shakes her head. “No doctor in this town will treat a colored man.”

“We have to do something.”

Mary sighs, pressing her fingertips to her forehead. 

“What?” Holden presses. 

“Nancy Tench.” Mary says, reluctantly. “She was a nurse during the war and still volunteers for the Red Cross. I know she’ll be able to do something.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Holden demands, “Come on, let’s get him out of the road.” 

Straggling onlookers watch with conspiratorial whispers as Holden gets on one side of Jim and Mary gets on the other so they can carry him between them. They make their way to the end of the street where the alley between the general store and the hardware store offers some privacy from the baleful glares of the townspeople. 

“Stay with him. I’ll go in and use the telephone.” Holden says. 

When Holden enters the general store, the boy behind the counter takes in the wound swelling around his eye with muted shock. 

“May I use your telephone?” 

“I, uh, yes. Yes of course, Father.” The kid says, “It’s right this way.”

He leads Holden behind the counter and into the office where the telephone is sitting on a desk among a pile of papers and folders.

Holden sits down slowly in the chair, and lets out a shuddering breath as he picks up the receiver. The adrenaline in his veins has cooled to a jittery hum, and the place where Watson’s fist connected with his cheekbone is beginning to throb. But it doesn’t feel like abject pain, only a disconcerting burn, a fuel to his fire, the last of his patience with this town wearing thin. Mary had called it  _ godforsaken;  _ and if that’s true, then he’s a stranger in a strange land, a pilgrim among heathens. A pilgrim distracted by one light, one face out of the hundreds, one that he doesn’t despise. 

Holden picks up the phone, and waits to hear Bill’s voice. 

^^^

Holden explains what happened to Bill over the phone, but it’s still a shock to see the priest’s face marred by a darkening shiner around his eye, his brow split open and trickling drying blood when he and Nancy pull along the curb of the general store in their car. Holden rises from Jim’s side, and Bill sees it. He sees the blood on Holden’s face, the scarcity of it compared to Jim’s. 

“Jesus Christ.” Bill says, striding into the alley to where Holden, Jim, and Mary are waiting, “Fucking animals.”

“They wouldn’t stop.” Mary says, shaking her head. “They just kept hitting him until Father Ford got between them.”

“We need to get him back to the house.” Nancy says, worriedly, crouching down next to Jim. She touches his cheek gently. “Jim, can you hear me? It’s Nancy. Everything will be okay. We’re here now.”

“Let’s get him in the car.” Bill says. 

“I’ll come with you.” Holden says, “I’d like to see that he’s okay.”

“We can look at that eye, too.”

“Don’t worry about me. My only concern right now is Jim.”

“You’re bleeding.” Bill points out as they both bend down to hoist Jim up off the ground.

“I’m fine. I’ve been through worse.” Holden says, shooting a pointed glance past Jim’s swaying head. “Besides, you look worse than me. What happened to you?”

“I got mugged.” 

Bill grunts as they drag Jim’s almost entirely limp body to the car. The weight on his bruised ribs hurts like hell, but he doesn’t let the agony slip. They pile Jim into the backseat of the car as gently as they can, and Holden climbs in beside him. 

Bill turns to Mary. Her arms are wrapped around her middle, and she looks even more fragile than the last time he saw her. 

“Are you coming with us?” He asks.

“No, I don’t think so. I can get myself home.”

“Are you sure? You look pretty shaken up.”

“I’m okay.” She says, conjuring a tremulous smile. “You and Nancy take care of him, and let me know how he is.”

“Of course.” 

Bill climbs into the car, and steers them back toward home. In the side mirror, he can glimpse Mary’s willowy figure walking in the other direction like a pale ghost, blending into the bleaching August sunlight. 

Once they get back to the house, Holden and Bill carry Jim inside to the couch where Nancy lays down a few towels to protect the cushions from blood. Jim groans as they settle him down carefully with a pillow tucked under his head. 

Nancy orders them to bring both warm and cold water, and her medical kit that contains supplies for dressing and stitching wounds. She sits down next to Jim, and starts by dabbing the blood away with a damp rag. 

“I don’t understand.” She whispers, shaking her head. “What hatred could possess one person to do this to someone else.”

Bill braces his fist under his chin as he watches the blood wash away. Somehow it looks worse with the crusted blood gone and all the minute cuts and abrasions revealed. 

“Nancy …” Jim mutters, his brow furrowing in pain. 

“I’m sorry. Does that hurt?”

“No, it’s okay. Is Mary all right?”

“Mary’s fine.” Bill says, stepping forward to reassuringly squeeze Jim’s shoulder. “She’s sorry this happened, but she’s fine.”

“Wasn’t her fault …” Jim mutters, hazy eyes slipping open to meet Bill’s gaze. “Tell her it wasn’t her fault.”

“I’ll tell her, Jim.”

Nancy starts to use the alcohol, and Bill doesn’t have the stomach to watch Jim’s pinched expression of pain. 

“Come on, she knows what she’s doing.” He says, nodding for Holden to follow him down the hall. “Let me look at your eye.”

“Shouldn’t we leave that to Nancy?”

“Holden, I served in the Army for five years. I know how to field dress a wound.”

“Right, of course.”

Holden follows Bill into the bathroom, and Bill motions for him to sit down on the lid of the toilet. Searching the cabinets, he locates a washcloth that’s seen better days, and runs it under cold water. 

Holden folds his hands tightly in his lap as Bill gently guides his chin up. His throat bobs against the stiff, white collar of his shirt. This close, Bill can see his pulse racing like a fragile, blue ribbon beneath his pale skin. 

He draws in a steadying breath, and presses the damp rag gingerly against Holden’s eyebrow. 

Holden stiffens, but doesn’t make a sound. His eyes squeeze shut and his teeth clench while Bill dabs the area, thoroughly cleaning it of dried blood until he can see the torn edges of the wound. 

“I don’t think it needs stitches.” He murmurs. 

The dark fringe of Holden’s eyelashes flutters against his pinkening cheeks. “That’s good.”

Bill leans closer to inspect, carefully nudging around the laceration to make certain that it’s superficial. 

Holden gulps back a pained sound. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Holden whispers, chin shifting restively against Bill’s grasp. 

Bill presses the rag back in place against the scarce blood that seeps from the injury from his prodding. 

“You’re gonna have a nice shiner, that’s for sure. Did you try ducking?”

“It all happened very quickly. I tried reasoning with Deputy Rissell, but he didn’t want to hear what I had to say. I jumped in between because I thought they were going to kill him.”

The dense horror of the suggestion settles uncomfortably into the silence of the bathroom. Bill eases the towel against Holden’s brow as his mouth quivers with emotion.

“I really thought they would kill him, Bill.” Holden whispers, lifting tear-stained eyes to Bill’s face. “I promised God that I would give up violence and anger when I entered the seminary, but I’ve never wanted to do violence as much as I did in that moment. I felt it coming back up - this part of me that I thought I’d suffocated … or least forgotten.”

“What part?”

Holden draws in a slow breath through his nostrils, and presses his eyes shut. “I told you how I grew up in a home for orphaned boys.”

“Yeah.”

“It was exceedingly difficult. Dire conditions. It was lawless chaos. We had to fight for our food because, even though it was rationed, a bigger boy could take if he wanted and the nuns were too overworked to care. I wanted to eat. So I fought them.”

Bill sets aside the rag, and exchanges it for the gauze and tape. 

“It’s hard to imagine you fighting.” He says, trying to focus on folding the pieces of gauze over Holden’s brow rather than the detached look of ancient, cruel memory on his face. 

“I did. I was smaller than most of them. I had to be creative. One day, we were playing out in the yard when a boy tried to take the bread roll I’d been saving for later in my pocket. He wrestled me down onto the ground, and got on top of me. He was clobbering me really hard. I reached over, and felt a rock in the grass so I picked it up and hit him with it. He fell off me, dropped like a sack of flour.” 

A beat of silence as Holden draws in a shaky breath. He opens his eyes again, and the blue of them is crystalized like ice beneath unshed tears. 

“I kept hitting him.” He whispers, his voice going low and raspy. “There was blood everywhere. They had to pull me off. He never saw out of that eye again.”

Bill’s breath seizes in his lungs. Somehow, the image of ten-year-old Holden vengefully beating an orphanage bully with a rock and his bare fists is more disconcerting than some of the violent memories that often wander into his nightmares. It doesn’t fit with his idea of Holden, the pure, angelic soul trying to redeem the world. 

“The Bible says ‘an eye for an eye’.” Holden says, giving a soft laugh. “If that’s true, then I got off easy today. And God’s vengeance was slow to come around in that instance.”

“I’m not sure it works that way.” Bill says, clearing his throat of the thickening lump. “What you did today was a good thing. You saved Jim’s life. How could God condemn that?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes it feels as if …”

“What?” 

“I can never redeem myself of all the terrible things I’ve done with all the good things I’ve done.”

Bill tapes the gauze over Holden’s brow, and sets aside the roll with a bewildered chuckle. “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met. I find that hard to believe.”

“Yes, well. You might not have felt that way ten years ago. The priesthood has changed me.”

“Are we all who we were ten years ago?”

“No.” Holden murmurs, his fingertips grazing against the gauze taped to his brow. “All done?”

“Yep. For now. You’re going to want to change that out and keep it clean.”

“Thank you. I think I can handle that.” 

Bill takes a step back as Holden rises from the toilet seat, but Holden catches Bill’s hands between his own. He inspects the fading bruises intently, and runs his thumbs across the blunt knuckles. His hands are incredibly soft in a way that’s both jarring and comforting in contradiction the way they touched Bill last. 

“Look at you,” He murmurs, casting a sad glance up at Bill’s battered face, “There’s nothing but Philistines in this town.”

“I hope this doesn’t make you question your faith in humanity. Lord knows we need your faith.” 

Holden’s mouth ripples with something between a tremble and a smile. Bill wonders if he can hear the silent prayer underneath:  _ I need your faith.  _

“No.” Holden says, shaking his head, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God, Bill. And His love is my faith.”

“Does any of what happened lately feel like love to you?” Bill presses.

Holden’s eyes climb up to meet his unabashedly, the answer returning in the dusky blue that always seems to swallow Bill whole. 

“Love is what we give back to the world.” 

“Even when it spits in your face?”

“Especially then.” 

“I don’t know if love can cure this town.” Bill says, extracting his hands carefully from Holden’s before the urge to keep drawing him closer intensifies.

“You’re right. Sometimes a stricter hand is required.”

Bill bites the inside of his cheek. He can feel his face growing hot again, an almost trained response laid down with just one experience of mortifying punishment. The way it curls into his belly like the hum of liquor is difficult to ignore. 

He glances up to meet Holden’s steady gaze. For all the times he’s wanted to kiss Holden, this time must be the most excruciating. With his bandaged brow, his eye growing blacker by the second, and his mouth trembling with righteous rage, he looks like some kind of avenging angel sent straight from Heaven into the gates of Hell. The boy with the rock in his fist turned martyr, then saint. 

“I should go.” Holden says, breaking the thrall. 

“I’ll drive you back. Please don’t tell me you’re going to walk in this condition.”

Holden gives a faint laugh before submitting with a ducked head. “No. I’ll allow it.”

When they emerge from the bathroom, Nancy is sitting at Jim’s side with the bowls of blood-stained water and the scraps of bandaging at her feet. 

“Is he going to be okay?” Holden asks. 

“I think so.” Nancy whispers, gazing tearfully at Jim’s beaten face, peaceful inside exhausted sleep. “They just hurt him so badly.”

“Let me pray over him.” Holden says, offering a hand to help Nancy up from the couch. 

Nancy shuffles to Bill’s side, and loops her arm around his while Holden kneels by the couch and lays hands on Jim. He prays a short yet powerful invocation, calling on God and the saints to heal Jim’s wounds. When he’s done he rises to his feet, and puts a hand on Nancy’s arm. 

“Let me know how he’s doing tomorrow. I could come by again.”

“I will. Thank you, Father. You’re a true blessing to us and the people of this town no matter how ungrateful they may seem.”

As Bill drives Holden back over to the parsonage, a few dark clouds begin to trespass across the blue skies. Bill lights a cigarette, and lowers the window to tap ashes out into the breeze. Holden's usual verbosity is lacking; he looks quietly out the window, taking in the passing landscape with a distant stare.

When they reach St. Stephen’s, Bill parks and they sit in silence for a long moment. 

“Are you all right?” Bill asks as Holden massages his brow with his fingertips. 

“I have to change the sermon I’d planned.” 

“Have to?”

“Yes. I have to address this.” 

“In church? Holden, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not? Because all of the people in this town appreciate my ideologies so much as it is? No, I have to say it.” Holden says, pushing the car door open. “Even if they don’t like it.”

Bill exhales a sigh through his nose as Holden climbs out, and casts him a terse smile. 

“Thank you. See you on Sunday?”

“Of course.”

The door swings shut behind him, and Holden strides resolutely towards the parsonage. 

Bill watches him go, anxiety clenching in his belly. When he’d told Holden that this town was a powder keg, he’d never expected the priest to be standing at the end of the string of dynamite holding the match. 


	10. papermill's last pacifist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holden tries to appeal to the townspeople's religiosity, unwittingly drawing himself and Ted Gunn closer to the investigation.

When Holden entered seminary at age twenty-two, he was already behind most of his classmates by a few years. Many of them had been called by God to the ministry when they were teens, entering seminary directly from school at eighteen. A majority had been performing mission work from childhood. Most of them knew the Bible front to back in a way that he figured he never would. 

He didn’t mind being the outsider. He couldn’t relate to most of those boys who had grown up in nice, Christian families, surrounded by a dozen siblings and their close-knit church communities. Their sense of suffering for their faith was limited to sleeping outside for a few nights on a mission trip to visit the poor. 

He spent his days in seminary studying his Bible, teaching himself the love of God and His forgiveness just as intently as he was meant to be teaching other people. He took on as many mission trips around his studies as he could handle. He felt best when he was beyond his own life and immersed in someone else’s, far away from the aloof rejection of his peers. 

Those boys in seminary never agreed with his ideas about war and racial prejudice, and in six years’ time, not much has changed. 

When Holden steps out in front of the crowded auditorium the Sunday after Jim Barney’s public beating, he doesn’t see a group of faithful, penitent souls. He sees hardened faces, piety plastered over prejudice, their own prideful presuppositions of their position in the world over people different than them flying in the face of God’s love for His whole creation. 

Certainly, there’s a ripple of shock from some of the congregation when they lay eyes on his blackened eye, but he recalls easily who had been among the crowd that witnessed Deputy Watson strike him. None of them have the same look of horror on their faces that the rest of the crowd does, but rather a blanched discomfort sustained by anger, particularly Sheriff Brudos who is occupying one of the back pews with his wife. 

After the initial prayers and hymns, Holden steps behind the pulpit to begin his sermon. He grasps the wooden ledge of the podium, and braces himself with a deep breath. Running his gaze across the congregation, he stops when he sees Bill looking back at him with worry flickering in his eyes, but quickly presses on. 

“Well, I would say ‘good morning, good people,’ but I’m certain you’ve already noticed  _ this _ .” Holden says, motioning at his bruised eye. 

A hum of curious conversation sweeps the auditorium. A few people look intrigued, while a lot of them just look nervous. 

“When I was preparing my sermon this week, I had to decide between omission and honesty.” Holden continues, scanning their attentive gazes. “And of course, as He always does, God bade me toward honesty. He bade me speak to you, my flock, with the utmost truth, even if it is a difficult pill to swallow. The truth is that my heart is heavy today. Not for my own pain, but for the pain and hatred that I saw displayed in the streets of this town, at the hands of its people, by the will of their mouths.”

Disgruntled whispers sweep the auditorium, but Holden ignores them all. 

“It’s easy to attend Mass, say your prayers, give your confessions, and perform the easy acts of kindness to your friends and family. It’s another thing entirely to look at those who are different from us - those we sometimes view as below us - and respond with the same love and mercy that God has bestowed on all of us. But faith without works is dead. And what works should we show before God on the day of Judgment? What works will earn us a place at His side? The simple good deeds to our loved ones that we don’t question, or the more difficult work against our own prejudices?” 

“The Apostle Paul had something to say about it.” Holden says, looking down at his Bible laid out in front of him, the familiar passage underlined by his hand years ago. “In Colossians 3, he writes to the people to refute the teachings of the Gnostics, who had claimed that they possessed some privileged knowledge necessary for salvation. Here, he reminds the people of the church that no one person is above the other when it comes to access to God - that Christ alone is superior to the rest of us here on earth.” 

The whispered disagreements rippling across the crowd heighten. Holden looks up from his Bible to inspect their faces, all pinched up with anger and impatience, rejecting what he is saying before they even have a chance to read it directly from their beloved Bibles. Frustration brews in his chest, and he raises a hand to cease their malcontented mutterings. 

“Please, open your hearts, and hear it from God’s Word.” Holden says, raising his voice above them, “It says: But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” 

“Father, why don’t you just say what you mean!” Jerry Brudos shouts, rising to his feet from the back pew of the auditorium. “That you expect all of us to believe that colored folks are on the same level as us? God put us above the animals, didn’t he?”

“God created all of us equally.” Holden replies, trying not to match Brudos’ brusque tone. 

“God created the law! So let the law do its job! That nigger never should have put his hands on a white woman!” Brudos retorts, jabbing an angry finger at Holden. 

“Sheriff, please. This is the house of God-”

“So keep to piety and prayers, Father, and let my deputies handle what they handle!”

With that remark, the floodgates open. Holden watches with mounting horror and disdain as the entire auditorium explodes with enraged shouts and overlapping agreements. 

“People, please!” He shouts, but his voice barely reaches above the fever pitch of the incensed mob. “Have we forgotten what God’s love means?” 

Brudos marches down the center aisle, his brow low with an angry scowl and his pudgy cheeks flush with rage. He stops just at the bottom of the steps to point an accusatory finger up at the pulpit. 

“No one wanted you here in the first place, Ford! And now you expect them to listen to, you fucking nigger-lover?”

“No, I pray that God forgives you for the blasphemy you’re speaking in His house right now, Sheriff.” 

Brudos begins to mount the steps to the podium, his eyes gleaming with that same bloodthirst Holden had witnessed inside the eyes of the crowd only days ago. He takes a stumbled step back from the pulpit, his chest reeling with horror. He’d expected resistance from the congregation, a little bit of anger; he hadn’t expected an angry mob or threats of physical violence. 

Suddenly, Bill shoves his way past Brudos, and grabs Holden by the elbow. 

“Come with me.” Bill says, planting himself in front of Holden. He turns to Sheriff Brudos, who is standing at the top of the steps with his hands curled into fists at his sides. “Jerry, I’d rethink this if I were you.”

Brudos glares back at him. “Fuck you, Bill.”

“Go home before you do something you’ll regret.”

They share a silent standoff for a long moment before Jerry throws up his hands, and strides back down the steps. Most of the crowd has settled down, and a few of the women and children are crying. A lot of them are already headed for the door. 

Holden doesn’t resist as Bill clutches him by the elbow, and leads him down the steps and to the side hallway. His heart is still thudding with shock and anger, his armpits sweating profusely beneath the satiny layers of his vestments. When Bill pulls him into the solitude of his office and pushes the door shut behind them, the silence is deafening. 

Holden pulls the stole from around his neck, and leans against the edge of his desk with his head bent and a heavy sigh sinking from his chest. 

“Well, what were you expecting?” Bill asks. 

“A little latitude. Some willingness to listen and learn.” Holden replies, his voice low and choked. 

“These people don’t want to hear about how they should treat colored people.” Bill says, waving a hand in the direction of the sanctuary, “They want to hear about how Christlike they are for giving food to the poor and visiting the elderly. They want to confess to a few little white lies, say their prayers, and feel good about themselves for doing it.”

“Well, thank you, Bill, for enlightening me.” Holden says, sharply. 

He unfastens the front of his robe, and strips out of the heavy fabric to let cool air in against his flushed skin. Leaving the robe draped over the chair, he goes behind his desk, and sinks down with a choked laugh. 

“I became a priest so that I could help people. Who am I helping here? They don’t want to learn. They’re obstinate, terrible people who think a few good deeds are going to get them past the gates of Heaven.”

Bill drops his hat on Holden’s desk, and sits down in the chair across from him. He meets Holden’s shimmering gaze with a faint smile. 

“You’ve helped me.”

Holden glances away, swallowing against the stiffening knot in the back of his throat. “Have I?”

“More than you know.”

They sit in silence for several minutes. Holden dries his eyes, and composes himself while Bill watches him with a soft, compassionate gaze. 

“Will you pray with me?” Holden murmurs. 

“Me?” Bill asks, a frown knitting his brow. 

“Yes.”

“Are you sure you want  _ me _ to pray with you?” 

“Yes, of course. There’s a power in joining hands and praying to God for help instead of doing it alone. And I don’t have many choices, do I?” 

Bill’s mouth tilts in a rueful smile. “No, I guess not.”

Holden rises from his chair, and circles around to lean against the desk in front of Bill’s chair. He extends his hands. 

Bill gazes hesitantly at Holden’s outstretched hands before reaching out to press his fingers into the palms. His hands are bigger than Holden’s, rougher, too. They’ve seen their share of fights, Holden thinks - but, God, how they can be so gentle. They cradle Holden’s hands now like fine china, afraid that he will break, and for a moment, he wishes they would be harsher, crushing bone against bone. 

He presses his eyes shut against the errant thought, and prays, “Our Father in Heaven, we come before you as two humble servants, asking for your guidance. You tell us that we lean not on our own understanding, that we must have faith in You, even in trials and tribulations such as this one. We pray that your strength leads us and guides us into greater wisdom and understanding. We pray for comfort to the mourning, healing for the injured, an open heart in those that have hardened. Most of all, Lord, we pray for forgiveness. From you, from ourselves, to all those that we have wronged, and to those that have done us wrong. Amen.”

“Amen.” Bill whispers. 

Holden opens his eyes as Bill maintains a grasp on his hands. Tears are knife-edged at the back of his throat. He doesn’t know whether he believes in his own prayer. 

Bill stands and shifts closer as his gaze takes in Holden’s glistening eyes and trembling mouth. He lifts Holden’s left hand to press a soft kiss to his knuckles. 

Holden shivers, breath stalling in the back of his throat. 

Bill glances up at him as his mouth travels slowly across each knuckle. His eyes are transparent blue, a swift, brutal seduction. Holden can feel himself going under, entranced by the gentle pressure of Bill’s mouth. 

He eases his hand forward, and turns it in Bill’s grasp to stroke his cheek. The skin is warm but coarse with day old stubble, his breath hot along Holden’s heart-line just before he nuzzles a kiss into the gradual caress. Holden moves his fingers along the jawline, and feels the flutter of Bill’s pulse taut against the top of his throat. 

Bill's brow pinches against a visible shiver. He reaches out to smear away the tear trickling down Holden’s bruised, tender cheekbone with the soft swipe of his thumb. 

Holden presses his eyes shut, struggling to draw in a steadying breath. The inhale shudders against his quivering ribs, sinks back out again in a strangled whimper. Bill’s thumb keeps stroking his cheek, taking him apart bit by bit, until he’s leaning into it, and pressing his forehead wearily into Bill’s chest. 

Bill goes still except for the staggered hitch of his chest. Hesitantly, he wraps his arms around Holden and pulls him close, into the solid warmth of his chest that feels like some kind of unbreakable fortress against the world. 

Holden sinks against him, his throat stinging with overwhelming tears. He can’t remember the last time someone held him. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” Bill whispers, his voice low and rumbling in his chest beneath Holden’s ear. “You can’t listen to a selfish asshole like Jerry Brudos. All that guy cares about is himself. He doesn’t care about God, or faith, or love, or kindness. You’re a better man than he’s ever going to be in a hundred lifetimes. All right?”

Holden sniffs, lifting his head from Bill’s chest to look up at him past the fuzzy glaze of tears. He blinks, setting them free down his cheeks, but Bill’s hands are already there, catching them as they fall. 

“Bill …” Holden murmurs, his voice choking as their bodies press closer, and he feels the heat of Bill’s breath on his cheeks. 

But Bill doesn’t pay attention to Holden’s faint protest. His mouth presses to one wet cheek, tasting Holden’s tears, leaving the damp, humming sting of saliva in their place; and Holden can’t choke out another rejection, only a helpless whimper as Bill’s mouth moves down his cheek, against his jawline, across his chin. It smothers the other cheek in the same, fervent kisses while his fingers wind into the hair at Holden’s nape and pull his head back. 

Holden submits, wrapping his arms around Bill’s neck to draw them closer together. The momentum of the feverish embrace leads them staggering back against the desk, the back of Holden’s thighs pinching against the smooth wood, his body going weak against the support. 

Bill steadies him with a hand against the shivering arch low in his spine, the other cradling his nape. His body is hard between Holden’s opening thighs, and suddenly they’re against one another, groins pressed together through layers of fabric. 

Holden moans out, knotting his fingers in the front of Bill’s shirt. His mind is screaming at him to stop the frantic pace of this encounter, but his body aches - God, it aches so deeply, down into his bones, for this tender, passionate touch, the reverent rain of kisses against his bruised cheek, leading to his gasping mouth which has not tasted another in so very long. 

“Bill … God, please-” He chokes out, pressing his forehead against Bill’s. 

“What?” Bill’s eyes are fierce beyond the heavy border of his eyelids. Clutching Holden’s cheek tighter, he gives him a slight shake. “What do you want from me, Holden?”

“I want …” Holden whispers, then immediately presses his eyes shut in humiliation. “No, I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t, Bill. Please, stop. You’re making me do things that I-”

Bill draws back abruptly, his cheeks flushed with lingering passion but his eyes aflame with burgeoning anger. “ _ I  _ make you do things? That’s hardly fair!”

Holden leans against the desk, trembling. He’s hot and terribly aching between his thighs, and he wants to cut the desire out from his own body. He wants to hate the look of disappointment on Bill’s face right now, but it’s only a reflection of him, all the needs he doesn’t want to believe his soul possesses. 

“I’m sorry if I’ve done anything to you.” Holden whispers, haltingly. “Anything to lead you into temptation. I’m truly sorry.”

“You’re not sorry. Look at you.” Bill says, his scraping a hand through his hair. “You can’t look at me like this, Holden and expect me to not … to not-” He gestures wildly at the scarce space between them. 

“How am I looking at you? Tell me what I’m doing, and I’ll stop.”

“No.” Bill bites out. He sighs, shaking his head, and combing coarse fingers through his hair. “Fuck . . . I don’t want you to stop.”

They stare quietly at one another for a long moment, the tension bleeding out and collapsing. Holden can’t find the will to be angry as he had that first time Bill kissed him; he’s just as guilty, his heart blacked with sin. 

A strident knock at the office door shatters the terse silence. 

Holden pushes away from the desk, and tries to compose himself. “Let me get that.”

Bill stands aside, keeping his gaze focused on the floor. 

Holden eases the office door open to see Mayor Ted Gunn standing in the hall with Jerry Brudos just behind him. 

“Father Ford, a moment?” Gunn asks, a thin smile curling his mouth. 

Holden gazes distrustfully between the two. “I’d like to have a civil conversation, Mayor. Can Sheriff Brudos guarantee that?”

Gunn casts Brudos a terse glance, and Brudos nods despite the lingering hostility on his face. 

Holden opens the door wider to let them in. 

Brudos scowls at Bill. “What’s he doing here?”

“Father, we’d like for this to be a private conversation.” Gunn says. 

“And I’d like to have Bill here.”

The four of them share grudging glances before Gunn nods his head. “All right.”

“What do you have to say?” Holden asks. 

“Well, I’ll cut straight to the point. Obviously, this is about what happened in town on Wednesday and your comments this morning.” Gunn says, “We’re the leaders of this town, Father Ford, and I’d like to think we could all come to an agreement as to how certain situations are handled.”

“Yeah, namely, you not getting in the way of my officers laying down the law.” Brudos interjects, scowling at Holden. 

“I don’t see anywhere in the law where it’s written that you can beat an innocent, unarmed man within an inch of his life.”

“Innocent? I’d hardly call him that.” Brudos scoffs, “You weren’t there when he was getting handsy with a white woman.”

“Handsy? Mary McNeil recounted to me that she slipped and fell, and Mr. Barney was just trying to help her up since everyone else in this town seems intent on shunning her.” 

“Maybe that’s what it looked like, but-”

“Gentlemen, please.” Gunn says, holding up his hands to interrupt the brewing disagreement. “We can debate the particulars all day long, but the fact of the matter is, we can’t have anyone, not even a priest, undermining our law enforcement in this town.”

Bill scoffs a sound from the back of his throat, drawing the attention of the three other men to him. 

“Something funny?” Brudos demands. 

“Law enforcement.” Bill echoes, smiling bemusedly. “Jerry, you and I both know that your deputies are nothing more than hired thugs. And you really don’t want anyone questioning your authority because that means someone might have half a mind to break the status quo around here and clean this town up.”

“You and your fucking BOI. So fucking holy.” Jerry retorts, “You all thought Prohibition was such a grand idea that everyone was gonna lay down for, but the people have spoken! And by next year, when Roosevelt’s in office, none of it will matter because he’s going to repeal that worthless amendment.”

“I can’t argue with that.” Bill says, spreading his hands, “But it’s the law right now.”

Gunn clears his throat as the two men glare back and forth at one another. He turns to Holden. “Would you like to step outside with me for a moment?”

“I don’t think so.” Bill says, taking a step forward to put himself between Holden and Gunn. 

“Bill, please. I’m not going to threaten your precious priest.” Gunn says, chuckling dryly. “I’ll leave all of the threatening to you and Jerry.” 

“Bill, it’s okay.” Holden says, putting a hand on his arm. “I’ll talk to him.”

Bill’s frown deepens, but he ducks his head. “Fine. Just be careful.”

“I will.”

Holden follows Gunn out of the office and past the back door to the yard that looks out into the cemetery. A warm, August breeze bustles across the graveyard, making the trees overhead sway and groan. 

“Look, Father, I’m going to be very plain.” Gunn says, turning to look Holden in the eyes. “Father Jacobsen and I always got on quite well. We had something of a friendship, actually, and I’d prefer it if we were the same - not always opposing one another. Things in this town go quite a lot better when those who hold sway over the townspeople’s opinions work together.”

“Are you asking me to lay aside my convictions?”

“No, you can have whatever convictions you like.”

“Just keep them out of church?”

“You talk a lot about love and mercy.” Gunn says, “It’s what you’re good at, so you should stick to it before this town crucifies you. And they will - public opinion is a flighty thing. You’re going to learn that. Even as a priest, you have to consider public opinion.”

“I’m here to serve God. Not the delicate sensibilities of the people.”

Gunn chuckles, his eyes narrowing bemusedly on Holden’s defiant expression. “You’re more stubborn than you look, aren’t you, Father?”

“Some people might say that.”

“Well, let me enlighten you.” Gunn says, putting a heavy hand on Holden’s shoulder. “I want to be your friend, but you could very easily be my enemy. Unfortunately for you, I have been in this town longer than you, and I’m going to be here after you’re gone. You’re young and fresh, eager to do God’s will - but this life is not about high ideals. High ideals get crushed under the machine of the real world. It’s best to get for yourself what you can, while you can. I can get you whatever you want, Father. I can also take it away. I know many people in the Catholic church, people who owe me favors, people who have the power to make things happen all the way up into the Diocese. If you want to stay in Papermill, I suggest you accept my friendship.”

Holden swallows hard as Gunn’s hand retreats from his shoulder, but the ghost impression of its weight - and the weight of his words - lingers. Anger boils up in his chest, an explosion he could let free if he wanted; but he knows it wouldn’t do him any good here. 

“All right.” 

“You accept?” Gunn asks. 

“Yes. I suppose I have to.”

“Good.” Gunn says, “We can all be good friends. First, you must recant what you said today. I can’t have the people of this town unhappy; it does nothing but stir up a revolt.”

“I can’t just take it back.”

“You can.” Gunn says, patting Holden’s cheek with a clammy palm. “And you will. Do it, Father, by next Sunday.” 

He turns and walks back into the church, his mouth set in a confident smirk. 

Holden stands before the graveyard, letting the breeze cool the heat on his cheeks and chest, letting the overwhelmed tears harden into steely determination. 

When he goes back inside, Brudos and Gunn have left. Bill is standing in the hallway, smoking a cigarette. 

“You shouldn’t do that in here.” Holden whispers. 

Bill takes a drag, and exhales smoke, unperturbed. “What did he say?”

Holden joins Bill at his spot along the wall, across from a painting of the Virgin Mary and the Christchild. 

“He wants to be my friend. And he wants me to recant my statements.”

“Or else?”

Holden meets Bill’s cold gaze, and nods his head. 

“Fuck.” Bill mutters, “He’s a slippery eel.”

“I told him yes.”

“Why?” Bill asks, anger rising in his voice. “We can resist that prick, Holden. Everyone in this town just lays down to him, and-”

“It’s not laying down. I’m ready to tell you about Father Jacobsen.”

Bill pauses, his mouth moving wordlessly for a moment before he scoffs, “Really?”

“Yes. He was friends with Gunn, too. And if we play this right, we can bring his entire empire crashing down.”

Bill’s frown melts away into bewildered amusement. “You mean that? You want to be a rat for the BOI?”

“If it means ending Gunn’s reign, yes.”

“Holden, this is … dangerous.”

“The way I see it, I don’t have a choice.” Holden says, shifting his gaze from Bill’s worried expression. “If I don’t, he’s going to use his connections to make sure I leave this town and never come back.” 

Bill absorbs this statement, and its implications, in silence until he clears his throat. “Okay. Then we shouldn’t waste anymore time. I think you should meet my SAC next week.”

Holden nods. “Yes, okay.”

He can feel Bill staring at him so he looks up again. Bill’s smile is faint, yet mystified. 

“What?”

“Nothing. You surprise me.” Bill says, tilting his head as he reads the blush on Holden’s cheeks, “That’s it. You surprise me.”

They don’t mention the moment of frantic, fleshly desires that they shared only ten minutes earlier. With much prayer and Biblical meditation, Holden thinks, he’ll try to forget just how intensely and deeply Bill touched him, but now that they’re going to be working together even more closely than before, he has his doubts that any power, in Heaven or on earth, could remove that connection from his mind.

^^^

On Tuesday, Bill drives out of Papermill as if he’s headed for D.C., but pulls off to the side of the road where he waits with the door open to the breeze and a cigarette bleeding nicotine into his lungs until he sees Holden cutting across the field toward him. 

Bill flicks cigarette ashes at the ground, and chews his lower lip as Holden draws closer. It’s a muggy, August day, and a mirage-like haze undulates above the rows of corn. He’s sweating through his undershirt. Holden is dressed, as always, in his blacks. Long sleeves. He looks unperturbed by the humidity except for the glistening of sweat on his brow. 

“Good morning.” He says, pausing a few feet from Bill’s car. 

“Ready?” Bill asks. 

Holden nods. He gets into the passenger’s seat, and gazes straight ahead while Bill discards the remnants of his cigarette and pulls back onto the road. They drive for a few miles with nothing but the gust of the wind coming through the open window to interrupt the silence. 

Bill casts a sideways glance at Holden. The dark, puffy bruising around his eye has gone down, but the cut across his brow looks ugly with scabbing. 

“That’s looking better.” Bill remarks, motioning to the healing wound. 

Holden touches the area self-consciously. “It doesn’t hurt so much anymore.”

“That cut is ugly. Might even get a scar out of it.”

“I’ll add it to my collection.” Holden says, his tone glib despite the cold sobriety in his eyes. 

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” 

Holden finally looks at him, a quick glance at Bill’s hands wrapped around the steering wheel. 

“Your hands look better, too.”

“Yeah, almost back to normal.” Bill says, extending his fingers. “I haven’t drank since so you should be happy.”

“I am. Are you?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t sound happy.”

“I think about having a drink every day.” Bill says, lifting his shoulders. “It would be a lot easier if I did.”

“It’s always easier to give into sin. One day, you’ll look back from a better place in your life, and realize it was for the best.”

“A better place. I don’t know what that looks like.”

“Isn’t it here in Papermill with your family?”

Bill begins to laugh before he catches Holden’s somber gaze. He purses his mouth shut, and focuses on the road again. 

“I thought that’s why you wanted to quit so badly.” Holden presses. 

Bill rubs a hand over his jaw, mustering a grim smile. “Yeah. My family.” 

When they arrive in Alexandria, Wendy is already at the chosen meeting place, a little restaurant tucked away from downtown where there’s mostly old-timers having an early lunch at the bar seating. 

Wendy had reserved a booth toward the back of the diner. She sets aside her cup of coffee, and rises to greet them. 

“Wendy, I’d like you to meet Father Ford.” Bill says. 

“Lovely to meet you.” Holden says, accepting Wendy’s handshake. “Bill has told me a lot about you.”

“That’s funny.” Wendy says, casting Bill a demure smile. 

“Why?” Holden asks. 

“I don’t mean this offensively, but I hadn’t heard about you until a few days ago.” Wendy says, “Now he means to make you a central part of our investigation into Mayor Gunn.”

Holden casts Bill a nervous glance. 

Bill clears his throat. “Well, it was Holden who came to me with the proposition; but you can trust him, Wendy.”

“I certainly hope so.” Wendy replies, sitting back down on her side of the booth. “The day I can’t trust a man of the cloth to do right in the eyes of the law is the day I lose the last of my faith in humanity.” 

Holden slides into the booth across from her. “You shouldn’t give up on humanity just yet, Agent Carr.”

“Says the man with an ugly shiner on his eye. Bill told me what happened.”

“There’s certainly bad people in the world. I’d like to believe they don’t make up the majority.”

“You’re optimistic.” Wendy says, some of her hostility melting away with a faint smile. “Good. We need optimism. It’s easy to give up when we’re facing someone like Gunn.”

“I don’t intend to give up. Gunn may be a giant, but even Goliath was slayed. Just tell me what I need to do.”

“Firstly, Bill has informed me that you have some information about your former priest in Papermill.” Wendy says. 

“Yes.” 

“How does a priest’s reassignment pertain to what we’re doing here?” 

Holden folds his hands on the table in front of him, and taps his index finger against his knuckle. His gaze is focused on his hands, but Bill can glimpse the flicker of worry in his jawline. 

“Gunn told me what good friends they were.” Holden says, finally. “He made it sound as if they had some type of arrangement.”

“Arrangement?” Bill echoes. 

“Yes. And I know for a fact that Jacobsen was removed for … improprieties of a carnal nature.”

Bill frowns, and glances over to meet Wendy’s equally intrigued stare. 

Holden clears his throat. “He was having liaisons with a young girl in Arlington. For a fee.”

“I see.” Wendy says, her brow rising. 

“That’s all I know, officially.” Holden continues, “But I’ve heard rumors that he also purchased liquor from Gunn and Brudos’ man Corll, and everyone in that town knows that he supported Gunn in his run for mayor.”

“You think part of the arrangement had to do with the girl?” Wendy asks. 

“Gunn has a home in Arlington, and operates a lot of his business out of it.” Bill says, “It’s not a far stretch.”

“That would mean accusing Gunn of prostitution also. That isn’t an angle we’d considered before.” Wendy says. 

“I think there’s a lot that Gunn is hiding. He also claimed to me that he knows people in the Diocese who could get rid of me if needed. I’m sure it’s part of why Jacobsen was allowed to stay around for so long despite his blatant violation of his vows.” Holden says, shaking his head. “I don’t know how he lived with himself.”

They’re all quiet for a long moment, absorbing this new information. 

At last, Wendy clears her throat. “If all of this is true, it’s more important than ever to stop Gunn. This isn’t just about Prohibition laws that might end with the election. It’s about corruption on every level, a man with no code or qualms operating with impunity over your town.”

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes.” Holden says, “Where do we start?” 

“We need to earn Gunn’s trust.” Bill says, “Right now, he doesn’t trust me or Wendy, and he has a team of lawyers and people in the BOI brass to protect him from investigations and audits; and we’re not going to expose his corruption unless we have airtight proof.”

“I can earn his trust.” Holden says, confidently. 

“He threatened your position in the parish just a few days ago.” Wendy points out, “I’m not so sure he trusts you either, cloth or no cloth.”

A cold resolve hardens Holden’s voice, “He may not trust me now, but he will.” 

“How so?” Bill asks. 

“I’ve seen men like Gunn before. They’re rich, privileged, and powerful. To them, the world is at their feet. They place their trust in their own ability to crush people. If he thinks that he’s crushed me, he won’t view me as a threat for much longer.” 

Wendy’s eyebrow cocks, surprised by this succinct observation. “You’re right. I worked with the man for several years at the BOI, and there was nothing he liked more than having other people he thought of as inferior below him.”

Holden nods. “It’s narcissism. The problem for someone like that is that they can be easily manipulated by simply telling them what they want to hear, and stroking their ego. I’ll take back what I said about Jim Barney. I don’t want to, but I have to. Gunn will see it as capitulation, submission. It won’t just appease the people of the town, it will appeal to his ego. He’ll be blinded by his pride, and I’ll be useful to him again. He knows I can make the people of that town listen, he just has to make sure I’m saying the right things.”

Bill’s pulse ticks faster as Holden leans back in the booth and regards both him and Wendy with a gaze of cool aplomb. 

“Well, I had no idea you could have made such a great BOI agent.” Bill says. “Don’t you think, Wendy?” 

“Yes.” Wendy says, “I have to admit, Father, I’m pleasantly surprised.”

“That a priest understands the failings of the human heart and mind?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be. Is that kind of understanding God-given?”

“In part.”

Bill frowns at the ambiguous reply, but Wendy moves on with the conversation before Bill can consider pressing for more details. Deep in his belly, the gnaw of longing curiosity deepens. Just as he thought he was beginning to decipher the many shifting facets of Holden, he reveals another side of himself that is just as contradictory as the rest. 

They talk about the case for close to two hours. Holden doesn’t appear shaken by Wendy’s suggestions that unraveling all of Gunn’s illegal entanglements could take some time, nor is he perplexed by the fact that the investigation now hinges almost entirely on his ability to make Gunn trust him. He swiftly signs the consent forms identifying him as a confidential informant for the BOI.

As they’re driving back to Papermill, Bill shifts his distracted gaze between Holden and the road. 

“What did you mean back there?” He asks, finally, too intrigued not to inquire. “When you said that kind of understanding was only God-given ‘in part’?”

“My life before seminary was good training for dealing with men like Mayor Gunn.” Holden says, meeting Bill’s gaze. “When you have nothing, you learn to manipulate people to get what you need in order to survive.”

“You mean in the orphanage?”

“Yes, and-” Holden stops, his brow furrowing. 

“And?”

“Nothing.” Holden murmurs, turning back to the window. 

“You know, you can still back out of this. You’re a civilian. You aren’t required to do anything about Gunn.” 

“You need me.”

“No. We could find another way. This is dangerous. What I need is for you to not get hurt in the process.”

Holden’s teeth scrape against his lower lip. His eyes dart over toward Bill again before fixating on the road ahead. He clasps his hands tightly in his lap. 

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, well. You’re my mole now. It’s my duty to protect you.”

“Then I shouldn’t have anything to worry about. I trust you, Bill.”

Bill swallows hard. “You do?”

“Yes. I know you would do anything to keep me safe.” 

Their gazes hover on one another for a long moment before Bill turns back to the road. There’s a dull hum in the back of his mind, a warning bell. A helpless scream from his dying logic telling him that he already cares far more than he should. He can only hope that Holden’s trust in him isn’t unfounded. 


	11. to make manifest the counsels of the heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holden's faith is shaken by Gunn's demands, Bill's affections, and his own desires.

Holden drafts three different versions of how he plans to recant his statements on Jim Barney before the church congregation on Sunday, but he crumples each paper and throws them to the floor. 

It’s late afternoon on Thursday, and he’s running out of time to craft the words that will come across not only as genuinely but also as persuasively as possible. The struggle isn’t in his will to do it, but in his soul. Taking back what he’d said about racial hatred and equality burns a hole deep in his chest, in his own convictions that he’s held for years. It doesn’t matter that it’s a sacrifice that he has to make. The drafted words on the paper are making him nauseous. 

Holden rises from his recliner, and paces the small space of his living room with his fingers running nervously over the rosary beads around his neck. The memorized prayers drift across the back of his mind, a faint balm to his worries. 

He’s gotten to the “ _ he will come again to judge the living and the dead”  _ portion of the Apostle’s Creed when a loud, hasty knock on his door jolts him from his fervent prayers. 

He opens the door to Ted Gunn standing on his doorstep, a concerned frown knitting his brow. 

“Mayor Gunn, how can I help you?” Holden asks. 

“Father, you should probably come with me.”

“Where?”

“Town hall.” Gunn says, “If you’re going to recant your statements like you claimed you would, now would be the perfect time.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Holden asks, the nausea in his belly churning harder. 

“Just come with me.”

Holden hastily puts his shoes on, and follows Gunn out the door to his car. He clutches his hands tightly in his lap as Gunn drives them back into town. 

“You wanted to inflame the hearts of the people.” Gunn says, casting him a sly gaze. “Well, you’ve done it, Father.”

“What are they saying?”

Gunn guides the car around the corner, onto the main thoroughfare of Papermill where the belfry of city hall pierces the clear blue sky. 

“Half of them are calling for your replacement and the lynching of Jim Barney.” Gunn says, parking along the curb across from the building. “The other half are asking for peace and quiet in this town.”

Holden stares at the front door of the town hall, feeling a cold sweat break out beneath his collar.

“I told you unhappy people make for a swift revolt.” Gunn says, his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth. “I can’t have that, Father. The next thing you know, we’ll be having another strike at the mill, or the women will be campaigning to bring Temperance back to this town.”

“You want me to go in there right now?” Holden asks, “I’d planned on making a statement at Mass this week.”

“We don’t have that kind of time.” Gunn replies, reaching over to lay a firm hand on the back of Holden’s neck. “Go in there, Father, and do the right thing. I’m not asking.”

Holden stares back at him, refusing to shudder beneath the concealed threat in his cold eyes. He nods his head. 

Gunn retracts his hand from Holden’s neck, and they both get out of the car to cross the street. As they draw closer to the doors of the town hall, Holden can hear the raucous debate echoing from inside, a multitude of angry voices overlapping. He pulls the door open on a divided mob, folks taking up their stances on either side of the aisle to shout back at one another with raised fists and pointed fingers, mouths frothing with fervent demands. 

Jerry Brudos is standing at the front of the hall opposing the head of city council, Morris Redding. The two of them appear locked in a personal debate that’s fueling the townspeople’s unrest. Brudos looms over Redding with flushed cheeks and his booming voice that rises above the rest, shouting, “Look at what your priest has done to this town, Morris. Just fucking look at it!” 

The door slams shut again on Gunn’s heels. For a moment, their presence makes no impact on the mob, but as the folks in the last few rows turn to look at Holden in astonishment, the chaos dies down to a shocked murmur, and finally, to silence. 

Holden walks down the center aisle with his chin lifted. He glances back and forth at the panting, glaring, and enraged people on either side of him, his stomach twisting as he realizes he can’t differentiate between those who support him and those who oppose him. It just looks like blanketed meanness, each and every one of them ready to cast the first stone at the other - at anyone who might be an easy target for their discontent.

When Holden reaches the front of the hall, Redding casts him a worried gaze. 

“You shouldn’t be here, Father.” He says, his voice a raspy whisper against the stifled silence. “These people are looking for a fight.”

“It’s okay, Morris.” Holden says, putting a hand on the man’s arm.

Brudos blocks Holden’s path to the podium with his bulky frame, and glares down at Holden. “What the fuck are you gonna do, Ford? The people of this town have had about enough of your self-righteous pontification.”

“Please stand aside, Sheriff. I know what I need to do.” 

Brudos’ anger hesitates, though it’s rapidly eclipsed by disdain. “And what is that?”

“Stand aside, and I’ll do it.”

Brudos braces a hand on his gunbelt with a dissatisfied grunt, but he moves to the side. 

Curious murmurs ripple across the crowd as Holden goes to stand behind the podium. He looks up slowly from his feet, and scans the packed rows of aggrieved town residents. For a moment, he feels incredibly disheartened rather than angry or even sick. These people are just poor and unhappy, looking for someone to blame for their troubles. Then, his gaze moves to Gunn who is standing at the back with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face, and the thought that the mayor could have orchestrated this entire scene triggers a flash of nauseous heat down his spine. It takes him a moment to swallow back the bile. 

“Good people,” He says, his voice carrying softly across the hushed tension of the hall. “Jesus instructs us to love one another. He says, ‘he who is without sin, cast the first stone.’” 

The bated silence breaks with a murmur of disgruntled disagreements or concurring whispers. 

“I suppose I’ve cast the first stone.” Holden says, looking up from the podium to meet each of their gazes with as much tenacity as he can manage. “I pray that you do not throw the rest - at me, but most especially at one another. I came to this town with one purpose, one thought in mind: healing. I have been here with you for a year now so you know what my message is. Love and peace. Caring for each other the way Christ does. Putting down weapons, anger, and violence. I want, more than anything, for all of us here in Papermill to live together in harmony and love.”

“But what does that mean, Father?” A voice from the crowd reaches out, “Are you really asking us to go against the lawmen of this town? Against Sheriff Brudos?”

“No.” Holden says, “Not at all. Just the opposite.”

“You can’t just take back what you said.” A woman on the opposite side of the aisle speaks up, “I, for one, wouldn’t want you to.”

The disagreements rippling across the crowd begin to rise again in earnest, and Holden lifts both hands to quell the room from transforming into a mob again. 

“Please, listen to me!” He says, his voice rising above them. “Sheriff Brudos was right. Even a man of God shouldn’t oppose the law. God put the law in place, and he asks us to respect the law. If I’ve disrespected the teachings of God, I lay myself before Him prostrate, asking His forgiveness. And if I’ve reviled any of my flock, I ask for your forgiveness. I ask that we all lay aside our grievances, and yearn for peace.”

“So, you’re recanting?” Brudos asks, gazing up at the podium with a triumphant smirk set on his mouth. 

Holden grasps the edges of the podium until the polished wood bites into his palms. He sends a silent prayer to God for strength, though now, faced with the enormity of what he’s doing - defying his own convictions - he wonders if the Heavenly Father will hear him.

Do two wrongs make a right? Will God judge him kindly once Gunn is behind bars? He’s not as certain as he once was, his faith shaken. If Gunn lording over this town is part of God’s plan, none of his beliefs make sense anymore. 

Holden draws in a deep breath, and presses on from a place deep in his chest that’s still fighting viciously, a carnal rage. “I spoke last week of Apostle Paul, and his charge to the church. He also said in 1 Corinthians, ‘For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.’ In other words, only God will judge us when the day comes. It’s not for you or I to judge, only God. It is only for us to love one another on this earth, and follow His commandments as well as we are able. That’s what I intend to do from this point forward. Will all of you do the same?”

Holden gazes anxiously across the crowd. Some of them appear perplexed by what he’s said, while others are nodding their agreements, and still others are clinging to their anger. 

“Please,” He says, his voice dropping to an imploring whisper, “We are all facing some of the darkest times in our nation. All of us are struggling to get by, to provide for our families, to sometimes just put food on the table. We need each other. We need our community. Please, if we cannot love each other, what is left?”

Silence reigns for a long moment. He can tell he’s reached most of them. For now, it’s all he can do. It’s all he can say without breaking the last of his beliefs into irreparable pieces. 

Tears sting the corners of his eyes as he leaves the podium, and marches towards the back of the town hall. The crowd shifts as one to watch him go, whispering under their breaths to one another in what he can only hope is agreement. 

As he reaches the back of the hall, Gunn stands in front of the door with his hands tucked casually in his pockets. 

Holden stares at the floor, his hands curled into fists at his sides. “Mayor, would you please move out of the way?”

Gunn chuckles softly. “Incredible.”

Holden lifts his chin, blinking against the fuzzy border of tears to meet Gunn’s cruelly amused gaze. “What?”

“That was incredible.” Gunn pulls his hands from his pockets to clutch Holden’s shoulders. “You have their hearts - and mine.”

“Good. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me leave.”

Gunn releases him, and turns to push the door open. Holden follows him out of the town hall, swiping at the tear burgeoning from the corner of his eye with his sleeve. He hastens his steps to march past Gunn, but a firm hand on his elbow stops him. 

“I’d like for you to come to dinner with me.” Gunn says, his tone firm, brooking no argument. 

Holden scowls at him. “Why?”

“I think you misunderstand me. What our friendship could be. Come to dinner with me, and let’s talk.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Gunn chuckles, and puts his arm around Holden’s shoulders to lead him back toward his car. “But you must.”

^^^

Gunn chooses Webster’s, the nicest restaurant in town. The dinner rush is just beginning as a lot of folks are still disseminating from city hall. The waitress leads them to a table by the window where an unblemished white table cloth is set with a floral centerpiece and shiny silverware. 

Holden scans the menu with little interest. The nausea in his belly is yet to abate. 

Gunn lights a cigarette, and watches him with a meticulous gaze. He’d barely looked at the menu, but it’s clear that he’s a regular at this establishment since the waitress had remarked that this is his ‘usual table’. 

“I understand if you hate me right now.” Gunn says. 

“I don’t hate you, Mayor.”

“Please, call me Ted.” 

“Ted.” Holden mutters, focusing on the listed entrees. “I try not to hate anyone. It’s against my beliefs.”

“You hold your beliefs in high regard. I respect that.”

“Do you?”

“After what just transpired, I assume you don’t think so, but I really do admire a man so filled with the fire of his convictions. It makes you all the more reliable. You aren’t chased off by whimsy or shifting allegiances. I think once someone has your faith and trust, they have it for life - unless, of course, someone does something irrevocable to change that, but even then you love a good lost cause, don’t you, Father?”

Holden lifts his chin, attempting to maintain a neutral expression. 

Gunn chuckles, and leans forward to put his elbows on the table. “You’re an open book. It’s okay for you to say yes. I appreciate a man who wears his heart on his sleeve.”

“I believe in God’s redemptive love. That no one is beyond hope - not even you, Ted.”

Gunn laughs again, and takes a low drag of his cigarette. Smoke clouds from his mouth, and reaches across the table to singe Holden’s nostrils. 

“I think you and I can find common ground. Appreciate one another even.” Gunn says, “I can be quite tenacious myself when it comes to the things I want and believe in. In the end, what we want is really the same thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Peace.” Gunn says, spreading his hands, “I don’t like fighting for what I have in life anymore than anyone else. But life is an eternal struggle. It’s a fight we must all take up, but sometimes the fight is easier when people work together. People like you and me.”

“Please, don’t romanticize this.” Holden says, slapping the menu down on the table. “I would prefer it if you just told me what you want from me, and what I am supposed to be getting out of it in return.”

“You’ve already begun. Today, in town hall. The people may not always like you, but they listen to you. You have a way of speaking to them that makes them hush up and listen. In time, they would follow you.”

“To the election polls, you mean?” 

Gunn’s mouth tilts in a faint smile. “There, and other places, too.”

“What’s the plan? A mayoral term is four years. The maximum number of consecutive terms is two.”

“I’m glad you can do the math, but I’m not interested in limiting myself to Papermill.”

Holden frowns. Before he can press for more details, the waitress arrives with glasses of water, and asks if they’re ready. 

Gunn orders steak rare with baked potato and collard greens. He waves a hand at Holden’s undecided expression, and tells the waitress, “He’ll have the same.”

Holden stews as the waitress walks away, not giving him a chance to contest the order. 

“The steak here cannot be rivaled.” Gunn says, “Not even in Arlington. They put something in their meat that’s fucking euphoric.”

Holden takes a sip of his water because his throat is dry from conflicting anger and nerves. He tries to think of Bill and Wendy who are counting on him. 

“You were saying you’re interested in more than Papermill.” Holden says. 

“Yes, of course. I know a lot of people in the state legislature from my days in the BOI, and I’ve gained quite a bit of support for a run for governor in the next election.”

“Governor.” Holden echoes, “That’s quite a goal.”

“Yes. I need Papermill to be my core support group. Father Jacobsen was working on that before he was removed. The people loved and respected him. It was quite the shock. Then the Church sent you to replace him.”

“They thought it would be a good place to put me for my first parish.” Holden says, “An established congregation that already attended regularly, a small town. Manageable. The Diocese has no idea what’s really happening here.”

“They threw you to wolves.” Gunn says, smiling roguishly. “I’m impressed you’ve landed on your feet. When I saw you officiate David Ashford’s funeral, I knew.”

“You knew?”

“Yes, that you could steal these people’s hearts if you only said the right things. It’s unfortunate that you’re such an obstinate bleeding heart.”

“I don’t view it as a shortcoming.”

“It might be if you intend to be my friend.” 

“What can I expect to get out of this ‘friendship’ if I decide to set aside my bleeding heart?” 

“Well,” Gunn says, leaning forward to catch Holden’s gaze, “let’s get one thing straight, Father. There is no decision. You belong to me now, and I’ll do what it takes to keep you. But the experience can either be painful or pleasurable for you. For Jacobsen, it was young girls, the thirteen or fourteen year old sort. For you, I imagine it's something else. I can get you whatever you want with few limits. Just tell me what it is.”

“Do I have time to think on it?”

“Of course.” Gunn says, spreading his hands amiably. “Take all the time you like, Father.” 

“What if I ask for something you can’t get?”

“I very much doubt that could happen.” Gunn says. The calm, predatory glint in his eyes sparks into joy as the waitress approaches their table with the tray brimming with their rare steaks. “Here it is, Father. The best meal in town.”

The waitress sets the plate before Holden, and he grasps his fork and knife in faintly sweating palms. The steak is bleeding, red rivers running into the greens. 

His tongue betrays him with a hungry, watery gush. 

^^^

At the conclusion of dinner, Holden insists to Gunn that he’ll walk back to the parish. To his relief, the mayor has apparently had his fill of toying with him for the day. He pays for the tab in full, says ‘you’re welcome,’ and leaves Holden at the front of the restaurant with the steak sinking into his belly. 

Holden trudges back to St. Stephen’s in the dying light of a glorious sunset. It’s a beautiful night, no cloud cover, just the blue fading into indigo, pink, and finally gold at the rim of the horizon. The awe-inspiring display only serves to disillusion him further with the day’s proceedings, and remind him that he’s but one day closer to facing the congregation at Mass on Sunday. He doesn’t know if what he said in town hall will be enough to change their minds. Gunn certainly thinks so. Holden can only pray to God that he’s done the right thing, that God will bless him with the people’s returned faith in and love for him. 

When Holden reaches the church, Bill’s car is sitting in the lot. His pulse spikes, exhilaration and dread fighting it out in his chest. 

Walking around the back of the parish, Holden sees him sitting in the grass in front of David’s grave smoking a cigarette. He eases the cemetery gate open, urging the hinges to protest softly. 

Bill looks up from the headstone, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Holden says, pausing a few feet from the grave. “I haven’t seen you here in awhile.”

“Yeah.” Bill grunts, taking a drag of his cigarette. 

Holden sits down beside him, discreetly inspecting his tense profile. “You miss him.”

“Every single day.”

“I’m sure he was lovely.” 

“Lovely.” Bill echoes, scoffing a laugh. “Not exactly the word I’d use.”

“It’s the way everyone else described him.”

“Well, a lot of people didn’t know David the way I did. People see what they want to see.”

“So tell me about him.”

Bill’s eyes are squinted behind a sheen of cigarette smoke. “I moved out here in 1920 when I got hired by the Bureau. D.C.’s a half hour drive, and my buddy, Tuck, grew up here. David joined the Prohibition department in '22, and neither of us thought he was gonna last. I mean, if you saw him, he didn’t look like a soldier or anything like that. He had this … quiet way about him. He knew how to pick his battles because he’d been fighting them all his life. His mom was Jewish, and his father ran off when he was a kid. People had been treating him as less-than his whole life, but he didn’t let it get to him. He just came in, did a good job, and didn’t ask for any praise or recognition. A lot of people took that as passivity, but it wasn’t. Yeah, he could be the kindest, gentlest soul you’d ever meet, but he was also so fucking stubborn - a real spitfire, you know. He had these moods. When he was pissed at you, you knew, and you paid for it for days until you made things right. But when he was happy, when he loved you, it was like sitting in the sunlight. He was so warm, and passionate and … and alive.”

Holden studies Bill’s face as it begins to tremble and wince with pain. 

Bill rubs a hand over his jaw to smother the emotion, and takes a hard drag of his cigarette. He coughs quietly against the smoke. “Anyway, I figured I should come out here, remind him that I still care, that I’m still trying to … you know, make up for everything.”

Holden nods, wordlessly staring at the grave. He’s empty of consolation, only commiserating with Bill’s guilt which always seems on the brink of consuming him alive. 

“Are you okay?” Bill asks, quietly. 

Holden looks up, and Bill is staring at him with those pale blue eyes, a cipher trying to take apart the puzzle of Holden’s mind and heart. 

“Yes.” Holden says, drawing in a deep breath that’s quickly followed by a shuddering exhale. “Not exactly.”

“What’s happened?” Bill asks, shifting closer to him in the grass. 

“They nearly crucified me in town hall tonight.” Holden whispers, “Gunn came to my doorstep earlier, and told me that they were gathered there, some of them demanding my expulsion from the parish and thinking of going after Jim.”

“I didn’t know. You should have called me.”

“No, you couldn’t have changed their minds. I did. It was what I had to do.”

“What’s that?”

“Take back what I said.” Holden glances over at Bill’s worried eyes, feeling his throat knotting up again. “I know it was the right thing for the investigation, that I had to do it to bring Gunn down, but … my God, I feel terrible. I feel disgusted, and sick, and angry.”

“I know. I do, too.”

“No, not the way I do right now. Gunn admitted to me that he supplied Jacobsen with girls as young as thirteen years old. He says that he’s going to run for governor next year, and he wants my help in getting the townspeople’s support. In return, I can have whatever I want. The same things as Jacobsen - all I have to do is ask.” 

“Jesus.” 

“The thing is …” Holden begins, then presses his eyes shut as heat crawls up his cheeks. The breeze rustling through the trees overhead tries to soothe the fire in his veins, but the sudden red rage and desire is irrepressible. 

“What?” Bill asks, his voice quietly trembling. 

Holden opens his eyes, and looks over at Bill. “The thing is, in some ways, I’m already just as bad as Jacobsen.”

Silence settles, a choking, reigning hum that’s supported by the buzz of cicadas singing from the pines. 

Holden blinks and shudders as Bill gently cradles his cheek in his coarse palm, and draws them close. 

“You’re not.” Bill’s voice is a low, fervent whisper. “You’re not, Holden. You’re better than Jacobsen, you’re better than Gunn or Brudos - and you’re better than I ever will be.”

Holden draws in a hitched breath. His body hums. He can’t think straight anymore, not with the vitriol of the town hall clinging like poison to his skin, Gunn’s words ringing in his brain, and Bill’s touch unraveling him with devastating ease. All he has left is his righteous anger. 

“Bill, stop.” He whispers, haltingly, pressing his hands to Bill's chest in a meager attempt to separate them.

Bill's fingers knot in the hair at his nape, drawing him in. His nose brushes Holden’s cheek, and then his mouth is at his neck, warmed by hot breath and a branding kiss.

“Fuck. I can’t.” He says, his voice fractured and husky. “God, I can’t, Holden.”

Holden tears himself away, and scrambles to his feet. The image of Bill crouched at his feet swims in his tears. 

“You have to!” He cries, waving a desperate hand. “Because I can’t do this without destroying my life - everything that I have!”

“You think I want this anymore than you?” Bill demands, climbing to his feet to meet Holden’s tremulous glare. “You think I enjoy it that every fucking time I see you, I can’t help myself? That my mind goes places that are going to condemn me to Hell? That’s why I’m really here, Holden. Because I feel fucking guilty that David has been in the ground for barely five months, and I’ve moved on just that easily to the next victim.”

Holden takes a shuffled step backwards. “You … you and David-”

“That’s right.” Bill bites out, turning away and rubbing a hand over his jaw. “David is dead because of me, and I …. Jesus, I can’t stand the thought of you being next.”

Holden swallows back the knot of tears, digging deep for his resolve. He grabs Bill by the hand, and tugs them towards the church. “Come pray with me, Bill. We can go to God together. We can ask for His help, His strength, His-”

“Come on, Holden.” Bill growls, catching him by the cheek. “You know what won’t do any fucking good. You know-”

“You don’t even want to try!” Holden cries, twisting his chin away from Bill’s touch. “That’s your problem, Bill. You _ want _ to live in his sin. You like the way it feels!”

Bill takes a staggered step back, his cheeks flushing hot. He doesn’t look angry, only exposed, all of his frailty laid bare. 

“Yeah,” He whispers out, at length, his voice low and choked. “I’m just an unrepentant sinner, Father. One that deserves punishment.”

Holden clenches his jaw against the flash of heat that cuts through him.  _ Punishment.  _ The last time Bill had spoken those words to him, Holden had submitted because he was stupid and weak, believing that the righteous suffering was for the betterment of both their souls; but now, he’s angry, over the edge, unraveled. There’s no pious justification for what he wants next. 

“You admit it, then?” Holden says, voice shaking. 

Bill looks at him, eyes open and desperate, pleading to be driven to the ground. He nods his head.

“Come with me.”

Holden turns on his heel to march toward the church without awaiting Bill’s agreement. He hears the footfalls behind him, Bill close on his heels, and hastens his stride. The fire in his belly burns so hotly that he can’t see through to the end of the night or the morning that will come, but only this present moment; and he smothers the voice of his conscious, every Biblical text he’s clung to for the past few months to stop himself from doing what he’s about to do right now. 

In the darkness of the church, everything is silent with reverent holiness. Their hurried footsteps shatter the pall, and when they reach the door of Holden's office, he’s acutely aware of the saints staring back at them from the paintings on the wall. 

As they go inside, Bill clutches onto Holden’s arm, and pulls him around. 

Holden stares breathlessly up into Bill’s face splashed with the colors of stained glass. They're here in the house of God, but it feels like the salvo of a night of sin, Bill’s hands on him in places they shouldn’t be, bowing down before him the way he should be kneeling to God. 

“I confess,” Bill whispers, his eyes pressing shut, “Father, I accuse myself of impure thoughts, of abusing myself with sexual desires I should reserve for my wife.”

Holden blinks as he recalls there should be a curtain between them, not Bill’s breath on his cheeks. Still, he should perform the ritual because ritual is all he has left. 

“Are you penitent, child?” He whispers, reaching up to cradle Bill’s cheek in his hand. 

Bill lowers his head, pressing his face into the warmth of Holden’s palm. “Yes, Father. I’m guilty. I feel my guilt growing heavier on my shoulders every day.”

“If you repent, God will forgive you.” Holden replies, and though he’s said those words a thousand times, they now feel like knives in his throat. 

“Good.” Bill whispers, huskily, leaning closer. 

His weight leads them backwards until Holden feels the cherrywood cabinet at his back. Bill pins him there, and pulls open the opposite door. His hand reaches inside, and returns with one of the canes in his fist. He presses it to Holden’s chest. 

“Then let me do penance.” He whispers. 

Holden leans against the cabinet, trying to make his knees stop quivering as Bill pulls away. His palms are sweating around the cane, the girth of it much thicker than the switch he had chosen last time. 

Bill walks over to the desk, and plants his hands against the edge. When he glances over his shoulder at Holden, there’s only a hint of trepidation in his pale eyes. 

Pushing away from the cabinet, Holden draws in a deep breath. Cool resolve explodes in his veins, a drowning sense of euphoria triggered by Bill’s abject submission. The thought that he could do almost anything to Bill in this moment without rousing rebellion in him crosses his mind. 

“No, not like that.” Holden says, his voice pushing from his chest, past the last of his resistance. 

A frown flickers on Bill’s brow. 

“You need your hands.” Holden says, and they can both hear what he really means:  _ I want to mark you in a place no one else will see.  _

Bill hesitates barely a second. His chest rises with a shuddering breath as he reaches up to slide his suspenders from his shoulders. His hands fall to the fastenings of his trousers. 

Holden grasps the cane tighter between his hands. His head is swimming, impulse leaping ahead of his logic. Somewhere in his mind, he knows he’s crossing a line he can’t go back from, but the distinction hardly matters with Bill’s pants sinking from his hips. 

He shifts closer, gaze flickering downward. In the scarce light of the office, the backs of Bill’s thighs are pale and exposed. 

“Lean over the desk.” Holden says. His voice sounds strange inside his head. Confident, cruel. 

Bill looks at him with wide eyes and trembling mouth. No argument, just overwhelmed shock and anticipation. He lowers his chin, and bends to plant his elbows on the desk.

Holden hears the shaky breath that comes out of him, and watches a shiver ripple down his spine. He grasps the cane towards the end, and places the length of it across the back of Bill’s thighs, just below his backside. 

Bill flinches, a choked sound leaping against his clenched jaw. 

“The next time those perverse thoughts arise, I want you to think about this.” Holden says, “Don’t dwell on the carnal desires. Think about the pain you’ve caused yourself.”

He doesn’t wait for Bill to respond, much less agree. When he swings with the rod, the swift, whistling sound of it cutting through the silence ends with the fleshly smack of it hitting Bill’s thighs. 

Bill cries out immediately, and lurches against the desk, triggering the low hum of satisfaction in Holden’s veins. He blinks it away, clinging onto the belief that this is penance, this is what Bill asked for; but he can’t stop the explosion of heat in his belly when he strikes a second time, and watches Bill's body tremble against the desk like a helpless marionette. 

Holden pauses to compose himself, and adjust his grasp on the cane. His palms are sweating, all of him flushed hot with exhilaration. 

Bill leans stiffly against the desk, not uttering a sound until the cane comes down again. It’s a wounded, strangled noise that leaps from his throat, the kind of broken moan that Holden has only heard from his own throat in the midst of harsh self-mortification; but it sounds different coming from someone else, coming from Bill cowering subserviently below him. It begins to meld into a long string of whimpered cries when Holden falls into a rhythm with the cane, striking again and again with only a measure of his strength. 

He knows how badly it hurts, just how hard he has to dole out the blows to make Bill crumble. That moment is far off yet, torturous long minutes before he’s suffered enough to be allowed to sink to the ground in burning, throbbing agony. 

Bill stretches out a trembling hand to grab onto the opposite side of the desk. The other hand is pressed over his mouth, trying in vain to smother the strangled cries lurching from his chest with every blow. He manages to stay bolted in place except for the unstoppable lurch of his hips running into the solid oak of the desk until Holden strikes particularly hard with the cane. He twists away, half-rising from the desk with quivering hands spread across the smooth surface. 

In the low light, Holden can glimpse the faint bruising on his knuckles still left over from last time. 

“Fuck.” Bill whispers, his voice shaking. He peeks over his shoulder at Holden with shimmering eyes, mouth hanging open with breathless gasps. 

“Come here.” Holden murmurs. Planting his palm in the center of Bill’s trembling spine, he pushes him back down against the desk. “Be still.”

“Holden-”

The viscous smack of the cane cuts off the choked sound of his name, and Bill slams his fist into the desk. 

“Fuck. It fucking hurts-”

“It’s supposed to hurt. It’s penance.” 

“I know, I just …”

“Do you want me to stop?” Holden asks, grazing the cane along Bill’s welted thighs. 

Bill pants quietly. Holden thinks he must be choking on tears, but he shakes his head. “No, I … I can take it.”

“Good.” Holden whispers, “Take as much as you can. Then you can beg for mercy all you like.”

Bill nods his head, all the agreement Holden needs. The guttural strike of the cane resumes, drawing pained cries and helpless jolts from Bill’s body every time it lands. Holden leans his hand harder into Bill’s back, trying in vain to temper the heat racing through his own body. But he can’t punish himself in the same turns that he’s punishing Bill; no matter how hard he tries to focus on the purifying fire of mortification, his fleshly desires arrive like a swarm to consume him, and he’s hard - so fucking hard beneath his blacks. 

“Oh, fuck, please.” Bill’s halting, choked cry interrupts the persistent smack of the cane meeting his thighs. “Mercy, Father. Mercy, please-”

Holden stops abruptly. He takes a shuffled step backwards, his head spinning with the pounding surge of his blood. He doesn’t feel his fingers uncurl until the cane falls and clatters at his feet.

Bill slumps to the ground on his knees. His fingers cling to the edge of the desk until they blanch, barely keeping him upright. 

Holden tries to compose himself with a few deep breaths, but his body is pulsing like one exposed nerve, his cock aching and unaccustomed to the stiffness of arousal. The pang of unbidden, unsatisfied need is a penance all it’s own he thinks, one that he should have to live with for as long as it takes for these impure thoughts to vacate his mind; but he goes to Bill before he stop himself, laying a gentle hand on the back of his head. 

“I absolve you of your sins.” He whispers. The words have lost their meaning. 

Bill pulls away from the desk, and throws himself against Holden’s body so swiftly that Holden doesn’t have a chance to protest. The solid pressure of his chest presses to Holden’s groin while his heavy breaths seep past the shirt into Holden’s belly. 

Holden's mind screams at him to wrench free of the embrace, but his flesh is humming, aflame with wicked desire, and longing for the touch to continue until it pushes him past the edge of pain and into pleasure. 

Bill withdraws carefully after a few long, breathless moments. He tilts his head back to gaze up at Holden with stricken, wet eyes. He doesn’t speak or make a sound; he just slides his hand across Holden’s hip to cradle his erection in a firm grasp. 

“Ohh-” Holden chokes out, his eyes slamming shut against the sensation. “Bill-”

Bill’s touch is soft, but no amount of gentility could stop Holden’s resolve from disintegrating. He braces himself against Bill’s shoulder, and clasps his hand desperately over his mouth to silence the imprudent moan spilling from his throat. 

The caress lingers, battering his resistance, until Bill climbs to his feet. 

Holden drags his hand from his mouth, but keeps his eyes pressed shut as he draws in steadying breaths. With Bill’s hand off his cock, he tries to wrangle his scattered thoughts to form some kind of rationalization or apology, but his mouth trembles open like a gutted fish as Bill’s breath on his cheeks heralds the capturing press of his mouth. 

The taste of Bill's mouth crashes across Holden’s senses with a hard kiss. He can’t pull away as he had the first time. Smoke and saliva, heat and dampness infiltrate his barriers until his mouth is falling open, a moan coming up with his overflowing desires. He grasps at Bill’s chest, feeling both faint and stunningly alive. 

Bill’s big, strong hands cradle his cheeks in return, drawing him harder into the kiss. His tongue slides slyly past Holden’s trembling lips, and licks victoriously across the palate and his choking tongue before he draws back to suck stinging friction in Holden’s lower lip.

When the wet, hungry kiss breaks off, Holden is reeling and panting breathlessly.

Bill presses his forehead to Holden’s, stroking a thumb across his cheek. His pale, scorching eyes consume Holden entirely.

“Bill …” He chokes out, meaning it as a warning, uttering it as a plea.

He’s limp in Bill’s arms as Bill secures him by the waist, and leads them back up against the desk. The smooth edge bites into the backs of his thighs. He feels his feet leave the ground, his knees pushed open so that Bill can situate himself between them.

“Bill-” Holden says again, but he’s silenced with another kiss. 

Bill's teeth nip at his lower lip, drawing a cry from the back of his throat. His scarcely gathered resistance melts away again, and he pliantly opens his mouth to Bill’s fervent hot kisses. Without his full consent, his own tongue pushes its way into the sloppy kiss, unskilled yet desperate with needs he’s left unfulfilled for years. 

Bill’s trembling has long since dissipated. His hands are rough with fierce impatience as he locates the fastenings of Holden’s trousers. The zipper releases with a hiss, loud against the taut silence. He severs the kiss, and leans back just far enough to pull the trousers out from under Holden’s backside. 

Dazed, Holden clings to Bill’s shoulders while the silky fabric makes a quick departure down his legs, leaving him trembling in his briefs. 

“Ohh …” Holden whimpers, the shocked sound leaping up his throat with the graze of Bill’s palm along his bare thigh. The enormity of what his traitorous flesh is about to lead him into strikes him hard as Bill gathers him up through his underwear, palm stroking and squeezing persistent friction into the aching flesh. 

“Oh, please …” Holden moans, turning his face away from Bill’s vagrant kisses singeing the corners of his mouth. “Please, God, I can’t-”

“Shh,” Bill murmurs, mouth warm and damp against his ear, “I know this is what you want.” 

Holden groans as his hips urge up against the contact. 

“Admit it.” Bill growls, “You want it just as much as I do.”

Holden presses his eyes shut against the hot sting of humiliation, but his mouth is already trembling open, confessing, “Yes, I do. God help me, I do.”

Bill grunts a choked sound of satisfaction. He dips his hand under the waistband of Holden’s underwear, burning him with skin-on-skin, visceral touch. 

“Oh, God!” Holden cries, his head spilling back in vexed, pleasured agony. “Bill-”

Bill lets go of his cock, but only to lay him on his back across the desk. Holden’s legs flail helplessly against the empty air for mere seconds before Bill quickly removes his shoes and the bunched trousers and underwear, and pins his knees up against his chest. 

Holden opens his eyes to the stained glass image of Jesus carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders looking over them from the window. Agonized, he tears his eyes away to look up at Bill towering above him, hand seizing his engorged cock by the root. 

Holden shudders, his mouth sinking open in an astonished cry. Bill’s capable hand works him gently but powerfully, grinding the last of his resistance down to a fine, fleeting dust. The pleasure is quick to rise up, a boiling heat between his hips that’s gnawing, aching, and unbearable. It stretches on until he’s brought into submission, his legs falling open eagerly, and his feet digging into the edge of the desk to urge his hips up against the deft strokes. 

When the pace eases to an almost stationary grip, Holden cracks his eyelids open to watch as Bill leans forward between his spread legs, tongue dampening his lips. His breath spills hotly across the swollen cockhead; and Jesus Christ, Holden can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t move except for the obscene twitch of his erection. His gaze locks tremulously to Bill’s fiery blue eyes as Bill guides the weeping tip of his cock past his lips. 

“Oh, Jesus God!” Holden shouts.

Bill’s mouth is warm and wet, so thrilling and intent that the thought of stopping the momentum of this encounter is no longer feasible; rather, his hips arch up eagerly into the wet grip of Bill’s mouth, his body all tender and desperate with repressed need. He grabs at Bill’s hair, feeling his nails rake across the scalp before the feverish grasp lays hold at the crown; and he’s destroyed, pushing Bill’s head away in one second, pulling it wildly closer the second, ravished pleas rasping from his throat. 

Bill sucks on him greedily, uttering a satisfied groan from the back of his throat that vibrates tortuously into Holden’s intensely aroused cock. His lips suction around the throbbing shaft, viciously claiming it as his own, and applying the most dizzying feats with his tongue that Holden has ever felt. 

He stops fighting, and stretches his legs over Bill’s shoulders. He lets the arousal crush him, lets the rapid, skillful ministration of Bill’s wicked mouth paralyze him; he sinks into the thrill of surging adrenaline and blinding arousal climbing and tingling through his chest and belly. He doesn’t know if he’s making the whimpered helpless sounds echoing in his head or if it’s just the chaos of his own conscience, his beliefs, his faith, his everything crumbling and burning to ash. Nothing matters in this moment except for the divine pleasure of Bill’s mouth pushing him to the edge of orgasm, the transcendent ache between his thighs melding from agony into bliss. 

“Oh, God … God in Heaven-” Holden cries, clutching a hand over his face as pleasure rises. “Bill, I’m gonna … I’m-”

Bill's wet mouth leaves him. The big, firm grasp of his hand takes up the persistent stroking, but Holden is already coming, release jetting from the engorged tip in long, hard spurts. He feels it land on his belly, all hot and dribbling, but the sensation is eclipsed by pleasure, his mind going blank and white with the eruption of climax. 

He thinks he sees stars, a glimpse of Heaven right before he comes crashing back down to earth. His body crawls from the clutches of orgasm to find that it’s been all rearranged, his heart in his belly, his groin turned inside out, his brain missing from his skull; however, his lungs are in working order, panting hard in a futile attempt to slow down the reckless crash of his flesh. 

Bill’s mouth against his inner thigh brings Holden back to the present with a jolt of reality. He drags his hand away from his eyes to glimpse Bill pressing a lingering row of kisses up his thigh, his mouth still damp with saliva. 

Holden smothers a groan in the back of his throat.  _ What have I done? What have I done?  _

“Fuck …” Bill murmurs, “You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed of this.”

Holden looks up at him past damp eyelids. He can’t stop the whimper that works up his throat as Bill strokes his cheek with gentle fingertips, and grazes his thumb across Holden’s trembling lower lip. 

“It was more beautiful than I imagined.” Bill whispers. 

Drawing Holden’s foot from his shoulder, he presses a kiss to the ankle, lips burning like a brand into the skin. 

Holden inhales a steadying breath, but his lungs collapse again with a choked whimper. He turns his face away as Bill keeps kissing his body, a burning line down his calf, the inside of his thigh, the two peaks of his hip bones, the tremble of his belly where he’s wet with semen, at last his chest as Bill nudges his shirt away from his tender, hard nipples. 

“Please …” Holden forces out the word, his voice wrecked and raw with mounting horror. “Bill, don’t-”

Bill lifts his head to catch Holden’s wide, pleading eyes. “Don’t what?”

“I shouldn’t …” Holden chokes out, “I shouldn’t enjoy this-”

Cradling him by the nape, Bill gently guides him upright. 

Holden leans into his chest as a wave of dizziness strikes him. He feels scattered, the stitched together pieces of him divided to the four corners of the earth. He doesn’t know where to start putting them back together again, how he could even try with Bill holding him so gently. 

“Don’t think about that right now.” Bill says, grasping Holden’s cheek and turning his face up toward him. “Hey, look at me. It felt good, didn’t it?”

Holden presses his eyes shut. He wants to lie, and say that he endured it; but Bill hadn’t taken advantage of him. He’d simply followed Holden into wayward desire. 

“Yes.” Holden whispers, barely audible. 

Bill kisses him slowly, silencing any poorly constructed rejections. His mouth is hot but gentle this time, drawing Holden’s desires back to the forefront. As the kisses move along Holden’s cheek and into the tender niche below his jaw, Holden shifts a trembling hand against his chest and down his stomach. 

Bill grunts softly, persistent kisses breaking off at the touch of Holden’s hand wandering against his belly. He reaches between them to unbutton his shorts. The fabric rustles to his ankles. 

Drawing in a shaky breath, Holden peeks down between them to glimpse his cock all hard and twitching with unsated needs. 

“Fuck,” Bill groans, quietly, pressing his forehead to Holden’s. “Look at what you do to me.”

Holden’s pulse spikes again, and his chest pounds so swiftly that he feels light-headed. He watches as if from beyond his own body as his fingers creep around the thick, pulsing shaft of Bill’s cock. The flesh twitches against his palm, tip giving up a small, milky gush of severe arousal. 

“Oh, Jesus.” Bill moans. 

He pushes closer, knees trembling. 

Holden hesitantly squeezes his fingers tighter as he drags his palm down the length. A heady mixture of horror and pleasure buzzes through his veins, the two of them racing straight to his head, the desire winning quickly in the end. In this little moment, he can admit to himself that this is what he’s thought of in the night, that he loves the way Bill is trembling and weak against him right now, entirely subjugated to Holden’s whims. 

“Fuck. Please.” Bill pants, clutching at Holden’s wrist to urge his hand into a faster pace. “Goddamnit, Holden-”

Holden squeezes and twists his wrist, and Bill sinks against him, whimpering into his throat. Cradling Bill’s nape, Holden buries his mouth and nose into his neck, and squeezes his eyes shut in concentration. He moves his hand faster and harder, thoroughly wringing it out of him until Bill is stiff and shaking against him, muttering low-throated curses. 

He comes with a guttural groan and a full-bodied seize that nearly topples them backwards against the desk again. Holden keeps jerking his hand as he feels the shudders rippling through Bill’s body, and feels the wet gush of release spilling from him and trickling between Holden’s fingers. 

When his trembling fades, Bill keeps his forehead pressed to Holden’s shoulder. 

Holden can hear the exhilarated breaths staggering from his chest, overlapping with the rolling thunder in his own ears. He withdraws his hand from Bill’s wilting cock carefully, mind buzzing with the sensation of cum dribbling and cooling in his palm. 

After a minute, Bill lifts his head. His cheeks are flushed, his mouth laying half open. Their gazes clash hesitantly, reading the silence swelling between them, seeing all of the truth and private agonies laid bare. 

Holden doesn’t have the words for this moment. No anger, no indignation, no ritual or Scripture. So he doesn’t say anything at all. He lets Bill kiss him again and again, their mouths translating a desire and desperation that’s deeper than conversation could describe. 

He’ll let the morning account for what it will; tonight, he feels too free to deny. 


	12. a hand of darkness over the world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holden tries to put some distance between him and Bill, but the investigation thwarts his efforts.

As soon as Nancy hears that some of the people in Papermill are considering trying to get Holden removed, she begins calling all of her friends and anyone she can think of who still supports him. She tells them all that they have to rally around one of the few good things in this town, a man who truly cares for the souls in his congregation. 

Bill knows he should feel guilty. He should hate himself for cheating on his wife, and then watching her defend the man he slept with so vehemently while the truth festers in his blood; but despite the pain and the bruises flowering across the back of his legs, he can’t go for more than an hour throughout the day without dwelling on the pleasure that came after the punishment. The only thing that gives him pause is that the line between the two is beginning to muddle into an indistinguishable blur. 

_ There’s something wrong with him.  _ He thinks,  _ Something wrong that no amount of penance or Scripture can fix.  _

Righting his wicked heart is turning out to be something of a lost cause, a pointless venture that doesn’t seem worth pursuing. How Holden feels about their shared trespass, however, is another matter entirely. 

They hadn’t spoken much that evening after they touched each other and emerged from the haze of pleasure. Bill had muttered something about Nancy wondering where he was at while they both got dressed, and Holden had simply nodded, his expression inscrutable. When Bill kissed him on the cheek at the door of the parsonage, he hadn’t responded other than to blush crimson. 

As much as Bill wants to believe that Holden won’t be able to deny how good it felt for them both to get what they’d been wanting for months, he knows it won’t be that easy. He’s expecting righteous anger, the same defense that Holden always uses. 

Bill drives he and Nancy to St. Stephen’s on Sunday with a ball of nerves twisting in his gut. When they arrive at the church, the parking lot is only half full. 

Nancy carefully surveys the people shuffling past the front doors. Her eyes narrow when she sees Sheriff Brudos and his wife pulling into the lot. She gets Brian out of the backseat, and clutches his hand tightly as she marches toward Jerry. 

Bill lags behind her, the anxiety coiling tighter in his belly. 

“Sheriff Brudos,” Nancy says, approaching the sheriff with a sweet smile that Bill recognizes as false. 

“Mrs. Tench.” Brudos says, nodding curtly. 

“I’m glad to see you coming to Mass today.” Nancy says, “I’m sure it’s just where God wants you to be.”

Brudos’ brow flickers with a frown. 

“You should be ashamed of yourself.” Nancy says, her cordial tone falling away as she takes a step closer to the sheriff. 

“Nance,” Bill says, putting a hand on her shoulder. 

She shakes him off, and casts Brudos a glare. “How dare you treat a man of God the way you’ve treated Father Ford. He’s done nothing but try to make this town a better place to live, and you’ve spit in his face. I hope you’re sorry.”

Jerry’s mouth moves in shock for a moment before he looks over at Bill, a sneer forming on his lips. 

“You should learn how to keep your woman in line, Bill.”

He puts a meaty hand on his wife’s back, and leads her firmly toward the front doors of the church. She casts an apologetic glance over her shoulder that will never translate into an act of defiance. 

“How dare he.” Nancy says, seething. “That’s the problem with this town. Men like him.”

“Come on, there’s nothing we can do about it.” Bill says, nodding toward the church. “Until the next election.”

As they enter the church, Bill anxiously scans the front of the auditorium and sees Holden talking to a few other parishioners. In his robes, with his hair neatly combed back, there’s no sign of the man Bill had touched and who had touched him back not two days ago. Their eyes meet for barely a second before Holden’s gaze hardens and turns away. 

Bill’s stomach drops lower. 

He and Nancy find their places in the pews, and kneel down for the beginning of Mass. While Holden prays, his voice clear and steady, Bill peeks his eyes open to watch him perform the rituals. Everything about him and the service appears typical, but Bill knows there’s a brewing chaos rippling just underneath. 

After the prayers and hymns, Holden moves behind the pulpit to begin his sermon. 

“This morning, I’d like to begin by thanking everyone for coming today.” Holden says, scanning the crowd with a calm gaze. He passes right over Bill before looking back down at his notes. “I’ve spent the last few days in prayer, listening to what God is telling me, and meditating on my future in this town. In doing so, I recognized some of my own inadequacies, my own failings. I’d like to speak on that today - on the sins we all harbor in our hearts, no matter how large or small, and recognizing them in ourselves before we begin to cast stones at others. In Matthew chapter seven, the apostle says: ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.’” 

Bill lowers his head as Holden’s soft, yet stern tone carries across the church. The first twinge of guilt twists in his chest. He should have known Holden would blame himself before anyone else, that he would direct any anger he might feel about breaking his vows inward rather than toward Bill. He can easily imagine the types of self-mortifying penance Holden has already dealt out for himself. 

Once the service concludes, the line for confession is brief. Though many of the townspeople were compelled to attend Mass today in spite of the week’s debacle, it’ll take some time for all of them to regain trust in their priest. 

Holden steps out of the confessional as the last parishioner ahead of Bill takes her leave. 

“Bill,” Holden says, tersely, regarding him with wary eyes. 

“Father.” 

Suddenly, the word tastes sour in his mouth. Bill glances away, heat climbing his throat. 

“I’m glad you’re here.” Holden says, “That is, if you intend to let me take your confession.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Very well.” 

Holden ducks back into the confessional, and Bill follows him inside. He blinks against the sudden darkness. The curtain between them does little to conceal Holden’s shaky inhale. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been two days since my last confession.” Bill whispers, forming the sign of the cross over his chest. 

He lets the words sink in, a startling reminder of what happened, an extended olive branch that Bill delicately holds out in hopes that Holden doesn’t view the penance he’d given that night as complete blasphemy. 

“Go on then, child. What is it you would like to give over to God?” Holden asks, his voice sounding unsteady for the first time since the service began. 

“You told me once that sin is about intention.” Bill says, “That to act out a sin brazenly in the face of God without remorse is like spitting on Him.”

“Yes.”

“That’s what I accuse myself of, Father. Sinning unapologetically.”

“But you’re here now recognizing the error of your ways. Opening your heart to God’s forgiveness?”

“I want to.”

“Intention and action are very different things.”

“Yeah, you don’t have to tell me. I did something terrible. I threw my soul in jeopardy, and I pulled someone else down with me, but I … I can’t find it within myself to regret it. Which is worse, Father? The sin or the love of the sin?”

“Why did you come here, then?” Holden asks, his voice growing strident. “To confess, or to throw your wickedness in my face and in God’s?”

Bill rubs a hand over his eyes as frustration climbs his chest. “No, I came here to tell you that-”

Holden is quiet from the other side of the curtain, but Bill can hear his anxious breathing. 

“Fuck this,” Bill mutters, reaching up to yank back the curtain. 

“Bill.” Holden objects, his face going slack with horror in the shadowy light of the confessional. 

“I’m not going to sit here and pretend to be some pious, repentant person.” Bill says, ignoring Holden’s protests. “I never have been and I never will be. I’m not sorry, okay? It was what I wanted for a long time. Now I know you can’t accept that because you broke your vows, but if you want to blame someone, blame me - not yourself.”

Holden stares back at him, his mouth silent but trembling, his eyes beginning to glisten. 

“Don’t hate yourself for my mistakes.” Bill whispers, “Please.”

“That’s just it, Bill. They’re my mistakes, too.” Holden says, finally, his voice raspy with tears. “I  _ let you  _ … I wanted it-”

Bill swallows hard. Despite Holden’s distress, he can’t help the sense of relief that floods his belly at the admission. 

Holden lowers his head to his hands, and breathes deeply for a few moments before he manages to compose himself. Sniffing back tears, he rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes to dispel any stray dampness, and lifts a steely gaze back to Bill. 

“We shouldn’t be seen together anymore.” He whispers, “If I intend to spy on Gunn, he has to believe my devotion to him, and I don’t think I can do that when it appears to him that we’re close friends.”

“What? That’s not-”

“Bill, please. Be a federal agent about this. You know I’m right.”

“Maybe. But it’s not fucking fair to use that to punish me for-”

“I’m not punishing you. I’m doing what’s right for both of us.”

Bill stares at the resolve hardening behind the sheen of tears in Holden’s eyes. The worst part is that Holden  _ is  _ right. He should put the case ahead of his personal feelings, otherwise he isn’t a very good agent. 

“Now, please-” Holden says, reaching up to pull the curtain back in place, “Finish your confession, if you like. We’re desecrating a Holy Sacrament by talking about this in here.”

Bill braces a hand against the sleek wood of the confessional as dismay seethes in his veins. 

“All right, then.” He says, sharply, leaning close to the curtain separating them. “I accuse myself of impure thoughts, lust, fornication, every wicked, lascivious thing you can think of. What’s my penance, Father?”

“The last time you confessed to these sins, you took a month-long oath of celibacy.”

“Yes. I did it, just like you asked.”

“It didn’t help.”

“Obviously not.”

“Perhaps you didn’t adhere to that self-denial long enough. The only way to rid yourself of these impure thoughts is to deny them entirely, to focus your heart and mind solely on God and his grace.”

Bill presses his eyes shut, fresh anger and sick, twisted satisfaction clashing in his belly. He knows what Holden’s eyes look like when he’s dealing out punishment; he doesn’t have to pull back the curtain again to know what truth lies beneath the surface of this penance. 

“Two months.” Holden says, “Begin again. This time, put your whole effort into it. Depend only on God to see you through.”

“Yes, Father.”

Bill prays the act of contrition, and Holden quietly blesses him.

_ I absolve you of your sins.  _

As quickly as the words leave his mouth, he’s gone from the other side of the booth. 

^^^

Holden goes for a walk after Mass in a desperate attempt to clear his mind. Beneath the weight of his cassock, his back is raw and aching, and he focuses on the burn of pain from the whip rather than the memory of Bill’s pleading gaze in the shadows of the confessional. 

The guilt and loathing had been quick to arise after their evening together, the realization that he’d broken one of his most sacred vows to God sinking down into his bones like poison. He hardly slept that night, tortured by the memory of Bill’s mouth on him, kissing him, stroking him, seducing him. As he writhed about in his bed, getting hard again at the thought of it, he knew this particular trespass would be more difficult than any other to overcome. He had to deal out self-mortification most strictly; and he had to cut Bill off entirely or risk falling into the same trap again, but that task is going to be precarious considering how intent Bill is upon clinging to his sin. 

As Holden strides down the sidewalk in focused determination, a familiar voice draws him from his thoughts. 

“Good morning, Father.”

Holden looks up sharply to see Ted Gunn leaning out the window of his car that’s creeping along the road beside him. 

“Good morning, Mayor.”

“Would you like a ride?”

“No, thank you. I walk to clear my mind.”

“I think I should give you a ride.” Gunn says, more firmly, bringing the car to a complete stop. 

Holden suppresses a sigh, and circles around the hood of the car to the passenger’s seat. When he climbs inside, Gunn smiles at him. 

“Well, how did Sunday Mass go?” He asks, “Has the whimsy of this town turned back in your favor?”

“For the most part.” 

“I can’t imagine what else you might have said to persuade them.”

“You wouldn’t have to guess if you attended.”

Gunn chuckles, “Forgive me, Father, but I’m something of a heathen. I don’t believe in God.”

“Don’t believe in God?” Holden echoes, “How do you expect the people of this town to follow you if you don’t respect their beliefs?”

Gunn tilts his head, appearing to seriously consider the question. 

“If we’re going to be friends, you need to come to Mass.” Holden says, turning his gaze back to the window. “Become a member of the church.”

“That’s quite a commitment to ask from someone who is an atheist.”

“Perhaps if you came to church, you would rediscover your faith. I could help you find it.”

“You really mean that, don’t you?”

Holden looks back over at Gunn, and the mayor has a strange, bemused smile on his face. 

“Yes. As I told you, I don’t believe that anyone is beyond redemption.” 

“I’m sure you think you can change my ways.” Gunn says, “Very well. I’ll play your little game, Father. Have you considered what you want in return?”

“I have.”

“What is it?” 

“Tell me where we’re going first.” Holden says, curiously scanning the lane that Gunn is steering them down. 

“My home. I thought we could have lunch.”

“Then let’s discuss it over lunch.”

“I see. You want to be romanced into it.” Gunn says, smirking delightedly. 

“That isn’t the word I’d use.”

“Oh, please. Who doesn’t enjoy a little seduction every now and then? Even a priest.”

Holden clenches his jaw against a sharp retort, instead opting for a thin smile. Gunn makes his skin crawl, but suddenly, he prefers the moral ambiguity of toppling the man’s illegal enterprises over the dread he feels when he thinks about the irreversible line he crossed with Bill. 

If his whole life is to be a penance, this one is bound to be the most perilous. Fortunately, he’s seen every hand of darkness move over the world, felt it’s cold fingers move along his spine and into his heart. Gunn doesn’t frighten him. 

The mayor's home is at the secluded border of Papermill, several acres of neatly tended lawn and forest with a gate surrounding the main house - rather more of a mansion in Victorian Gothic style that’s crafted of brown stone and bronze tracery along the windows and parapets. 

“It’s good to be mayor.” Holden remarks. 

“Please,” Ted waves his hand dismissively as they get out of the car, “This home has been in my family for generations. I grew up here. My father was a business owner, a land speculator, an investor. He fancied himself a bit of everything.”

“You’re like him, then.”

“I’d like to think I’m a better businessman than he could have ever dreamed to be.” 

“I find that odd considering your life as a BOI agent.”

As they approach the front steps, a black butler opens the front door to let them inside. 

“Jesse,” Gunn greets him, “I’m having a guest for lunch. Let the kitchen know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What would you like to drink, Father Ford?” Gunn asks. 

“I’m fine.”

“Please, let him get you something. I have whatever you would like. Even a bit of gin.”

“No, thank you. Water is fine.” 

“He’s very modest.” Gunn says, turning to Jesse with a smirk. “Get the man some water.”

Yes, sir.” Jesse says, ducking his head, and scurrying off. 

Gunn waves for Holden to follow him into the sitting room where an oriel window facing the left side of the lawn washes the pine wainscot panels and royal purple rug in resplendent light. A bookcase to their right is crowded with a library’s worth of volumes, and the other wall displays landscape and portrait paintings. 

“Please, have a seat.” Gunn says, waving at one of the pair of plush sofas. 

Holden sits down stiffly on the edge of the velvet cushion. 

“If you can imagine me twenty years ago, I was a much different man.” Gunn says, sitting down on the other sofa, and clasping his hands over his stomach. “My father expected a lot of me, you see. I thought joining the BOI would make him proud. At the time, I didn’t have an interest in stock market numbers or business strategies. I was something of a rebel.”

“So you thought law enforcement might be a good place for you?”

Gunn laughs at Holden’s skepticism. “The law is a tool, Father. A hammer, if you will. The people who work for the federal government are an extension of that tool. It’s all very political, trust me.”

“You don’t have any faith in the goodness of police officers and federal agents?”

“The system is corrupt from top to bottom. The more quickly you come to understand that and find your place in it, the better off you will be.”

Jesse arrives with water for Holden, and a glass of what appears to be gin for Gunn. Holden is quietly amazed at his brash approach to life, his absolute certainty of his superiority. 

“I suppose you probably have faith in federal agents like Bill Tench.” Gunn says once the butler is gone. 

Holden maintains a cool expression. “Why do you say that?”

“He seemed very … protective of you when we spoke at the church.”

“Well, I’ve been trying to counsel him.”

“On what?”

“I couldn’t begin to discuss that with you. It’s personal.”

Gunn smirks. “I don’t have any such limitations. I can tell you right now that you shouldn’t trust him. He has his shortcomings. I think he might tell you I’m a bad man you shouldn’t become involved with, but in many ways, he’s just as bad as I am.”

“I don’t need anyone to tell me you’re a bad man.”

Gunn tilts his head back, laughing from deep in his chest. 

Holden clenches his jaw, and musters a faint smile in return. 

When Gunn composes himself, he shakes his head. “Yes, I think we understand each other, Father.”

“You don’t need to worry about Bill. Our relationship is purely religious.” Holden says, “I’m his priest. And I know all about his shortcomings.”

“Do you? Including the fact that the man’s a drunkard?”

“Yes, even that.” 

Gunn’s eyes narrow. “I see.”

“I won’t ask how you know that, but I think it's a moot point. Not relevant to our relationship.”

“I’ll decide that. For now, I think I can trust you.”

A few minutes later, Jesse comes back to let them know that lunch is ready to be served. Gunn says that they will take it in the drawing room. 

Holden glances up and down the halls and doors curiously as Gunn leads them further into the house. He doesn’t yet know what purpose understanding the layout of the house serves, but it’s some kind of old, ingrained instinct that arises without bidding. Already, his brain has catalogued almost everything of value in the rooms he’s seen. 

The drawing room is an even bigger area than the sitting room. A massive fireplace lords over more lavish sofas and armchairs while a round, oak table in the corner by the window provides a serene view of the lush yard while they take lunch. Two maids bring out the meal, veal soup with dumplings and mince pie and tea to drink. 

Gunn watches Holden take a bite of the soup with a curious gaze. “How is it?”

“Very good. Thank you.”

“I host wonderful cocktail parties here. You should come the next time.”

“I don’t know if that’s appropriate for a priest.”

“The people who come to these parties aren’t from Papermill. They don’t need to know that you’re a priest. Or if they do, they don’t care.” 

“You don’t care for this town very much, do you?” Holden asks. 

“What makes you say that?”

“You don’t speak very highly of the people who live here. You treat most of them with disregard, and it’s obvious you don’t care what happens to this place once you move up in the political world.”

“Very astute, Father.” Gunn says, popping a bite of mince pie in his mouth. He smacks his lips as he swallows, and turns a distant gaze out the window. “I’ve hated this place from almost the moment I was born, and it’s only gotten worse. The people are small-minded and insufferable. I imagine you would agree.”

“People can get better. They can learn.”

“Can they?” Gunn laughs. “You watched them beat a helpless colored man in the street, and display absolutely no remorse for it.”

“You don’t agree with their opinions on colored folks?”

“Hardly. I employ several of them in my home. I find that it’s much easier to use people to your advantage rather than trying to abolish them from the earth. That fascist little fantasy world that they live in is never going to become a reality.” 

“Some people think it will.”

“Father, this enmity has existed for decades. One man or movement can’t change it.” Gunn says. He appears to be thinking deeply on the topic before suddenly clearing his throat and announcing, “I suppose I’ll have to learn to tolerate the people here if I’m to become a member of your church.”

“I hope it’s more than tolerance. This world is in need of love.”

“I respect that about you.” Gunn says, pointing his soup spoon at Holden, “You actually believe what you’re saying.”

“Don’t you?”

“Some of the time, depending. So tell me, what is your one weakness, Father Ford? What can I give to you that no one else will - especially not God?”

Holden sets his utensils down, and draws in a steadying breath. He’s been rehearsing this moment for the last few days, imagining how he might say it to make Gunn believe him. 

“You said there’s not much you can’t get me? Even if it’s considered illegal?”

“Especially then.” 

Holden drops his gaze to his lap, and toys with the folds of his cassock. Blend his true nerves into this constructed character, more of an old shadow rather than a mirage. 

“Heroin.” He says, softly. 

Gunn is quiet for a moment, absorbing this request. Then he echoes, skeptically, “Heroin?”

“Yes. I experience headaches of the worst sort and insomnia. It’s the only thing that alleviates them, but as you know, it’s illegal.”

Gunn leans forward, pinning Holden with a penetrating stare. “Yes, I’m aware. This is quite the request. It’s a foregin import.” 

“You said there wasn’t anything beyond your reach.”

“No. I’ll get it for you.” Gunn says, spreading his hands. “But you have to do something in return.”

“Aren’t I already doing something in return by curating your image with the people of this town?”

“Yes, but that’s the long game, Father. Short-term, I need to balance my risk with the reward.” 

“What is it you want?”

“Your friend. Agent Tench.” Gunn says, leaning back and crossing his arms. “I want you to get closer to him. He’s investigated me before, and I don’t trust him. I want you to make certain that isn’t happening again.”

Holden swallows hard, his collar suddenly hot against his throat. But he nods his head, obediently. “That won’t be a problem.” 

^^^

Holden calls on Monday just before Bill is supposed to be leaving for work. He grabs the telephone while Nancy tries to persuade Brian into eating the rest of his toast with jam. 

“Hello?”

“It’s me.” Holden says, his tone stiff and abrupt. “We need to talk.”

“About?”

“The case.” 

“What’s going on?”

“I’d rather discuss it in person. There’s some things that we need to … work out.”

“All right.”

“I’ll walk over there. Meet me at the apple tree?”

“Sure.” 

They hang up, and Nancy pokes her head around the corner. 

“Who was that?” 

“Uh … Wendy.” Bill lies, “She’s in court today so I have to do some things for her when I get to work.”

“Oh, okay. Don’t forget your lunch.”

Bill takes the sack from her, and kisses her on the cheek. He ruffles Brian’s hair, advising the boy to eat up all of his breakfast like Nancy says before rushing out the door. 

He drives the car down the road and around the corner, circling back to the edge of the soy field. He pulls off into the grass, and walks the rest of the way the lonely apple tree. The early September weather has tempered into a comfortable warmth that isn’t too vexing, but he’s still sweating by the time he reaches the fruit tree. 

His mind is leaping to all kinds of conclusions. Only a day ago Holden had suggested that they shouldn’t see each other privately anymore, and now he’s requesting a clandestine meeting to “work things out.” He has a number of things he’d like that phrase to mean, but he doubts Holden is regretting pushing him away. His religious conscience is too strong. 

Bill paces below the tree for fifteen minutes until he sees Holden walking across the field toward him. He’d put on his cassock this morning, and the long, black tails flutter gracefully around his ankles as he strides through the grass. When he reaches Bill, his cheeks are flushed with exertion, but his eyes are cool and guarded. 

“Hey,” Bill says. 

“Hi.” 

“You wanna tell me what this is all about?” 

“Yes. I had lunch with Gunn yesterday.” Holden says, crossing his arms, and lifting his chin. “I gave him my request.” 

“And?”

“I may have gone too far.” Holden says, his teeth pricking against his lower lip. He shuffles away from Bill, and rubs a hand over his mouth. “I asked for heroin.”

“Heroin.” Bill echoes, his mounting disbelief reflected in his tone. “Holden, that isn’t what we discussed with Wendy.”

“I’m a priest. I’ve committed my life to living below my means and giving to others. Do you really think Gunn is going to believe that I’d take a monetary bribe? He’s smarter than that.” 

“Okay, fine. But  _ heroin. _ Why would you ask for something like that? And why would you choose not to warn me and Wendy first?”

“Because,” Holden says, his chin lowering. “If Gunn has a mind to look further into my background than my time at seminary, anything I say or do has to make sense to him.”

“Why would heroin make sense with your past?”

Holden shakes his head. “Trust me that it does, and don’t ask me anymore, Bill. I’ve already shown you enough.”

“Jesus. You can’t just go behind my and Wendy’s backs, make yourself look like a drug addict, and then-”

Holden whirls around to glare at him. “That should be the least of your worries. Gunn has asked me to spy on you. He says he doesn’t trust you, and he wants me to get close to you so that he can make certain you’re not investigating him.”

Bill stops, his heart leaping up to choke his throat. He presses a hand to his forehead, and paces in an aimless circle muttering, “Jesus Christ.”

“Please, stop saying that.”

“I’m sorry, but this is-”

“I know. Dangerous. You told me that when I signed up to do it. I understood the risks, but …”

They gaze quietly at each other as the implications sink in. 

“So much for not seeing each other for the sake of this investigation.” Bill says, at last. 

Holden flushes, and his nostrils flare. “You don’t have to sound so pleased about it.”

Bill purses his lips against a reply that would be nothing short of a lie. He is pleased. The stakes have never been higher, but he can’t help the flash of giddy joy in his chest at the fact that Holden’s excuse to avoid him has been effectively eliminated. 

“He still has people in the BOI.” Holden adds, his tone dropping with worry. “He could look into it harder if he tried.”

“No. You, Wendy and I are the only ones who know. Nobody else.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. We’ve been careful.” 

“Okay, then we shouldn’t have anything to worry about. But I’m going to have to give Gunn something otherwise he won’t believe me.”

“We’ll come up with something.” Bill says, scoffing a laugh. “I’m hardly a model agent.”

A faint smile tugs at the corner of Holden’s mouth. “No.”

“What about this heroin that you asked for? Did he say he could get it for you?”

“Yes. He said he’ll let me know when he has it. He’ll send someone to give it to me.”

“Of course he wouldn’t do it himself. That would be asking too much.”

Holden nods. “He likes to keep his hands clean.”

Bill studies him for a long moment, the way the wind tugs at his hair and the sun reflects in his blue eyes. He looks different today, or maybe it’s just Bill’s perception that’s shifted. 

“How did you get to be so good at this?” Bill asks, closing the space between them in a few strides. 

Holden gazes up at him, calmly. “I told you …”

“Yeah, that your life before the church was different. But how? Most people in your position would be too scared shitless to keep going. They’d be looking for a way out.”

“I suppose they would.”

“You’re not gonna tell me?”

“About my life before the church? No, you have enough over me as it is.”

“Over you.” Bill echoes, scowling. “I don’t see it like that.”

“Yes, well, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you’ve destroyed me.” Holden says, his voice sinking to a raspy whisper. But he doesn’t look away; his eyes keep holding onto Bill’s with a shimmering tenacity. “I cannot go before the people of that church any longer believing in my own devotion and faith. I broke my vow to God, Bill. I’m supposed to love Him, and only Him. I’m supposed to keep my body pure, and now I’ve defiled it in the most horrible way. I’m doing my part in this investigation for that reason alone - it’s the greatest good deed I can think of to atone for an unforgivable sin.” 

Bill squeezes his hands into fists at his sides to keep himself from trying to touch Holden once more. 

“I’m sorry.” He says, ducking his head. “The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you.”

Holden gives a faint, choked laugh. 

“What?” Bill snaps, his gaze swinging back up to the pained mirth on Holden’s face. 

“I want to believe you, but I know you’re not truly penitent.  _ I’m  _ sorry, Bill. I am. I trespassed the same as you, but I am sorry. We’ve hurt each other.”

He turns to walk away, and Bill feels an unquelled rage rising up in his chest. 

“You believe in God so much?” He demands, “You think God makes no mistakes? Well, he did with me, Holden! I don’t feel right when I’m with my wife - when I’m touching her, laying in bed with her, kissing her,  _ fucking  _ her. It doesn’t feel the way it felt with David - and it sure as hell doesn’t feel the way I felt with you. Now don’t stand there and fucking lie to me. Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t feel the same way.”

Holden stares back at him, his mouth slipping open with a faint quiver. 

“You can’t do it, can you?” Bill says, waving an impatient hand at him. “God also said we’re not meant to be alone. If He loves you so fucking much then why does He need you all to himself? Why doesn’t He let anyone else love you?”

Holden lowers his head, and stares at the wild grass waving in the breeze. Then he looks up again with tears swimming in his eyes. 

“You don’t love me, Bill.” 

Holden walks away, his pace as quick and determined across the field as he can manage without breaking into a sprint. 

Bill is paralyzed, watching his figure grow smaller and smaller against the clean, blue sky. Recklessly, he wants to scream after him:  _ But I do! Oh God, I do. I love you with my bones and my whole soul.  _ But he’s never loved anyone without hurting them, without it being more of a curse than a blessing. Holden is right and wise to walk away while he still can. 


	13. lies told in necessity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the investigation surges forward, Bill and Holden's relationship falters.

From the booth situated against the front window of Eddie’s Diner, Bill and Wendy have an unobstructed view of St. Stephen’s across the street. They have coffee and apple turnovers in front of them, but Bill has scarcely touched the light brunch. He’s focused on the front of the church where Holden had reported Gunn’s man would be handing over the requested heroin.

Almost two weeks have passed since he and Holden last spoke in the field. They haven’t interacted much since then, only telephone conversations to confirm that their plan is on track. 

Bill went to church last Sunday, and sat in the pew next to Nancy with nausea stirring in his belly. He hadn’t gone to confession. 

His pious attempts at assuaging his own guilt and vying for Holden’s attention via religious overtures are over. He can’t stand the taste of the act of contrition on his tongue anymore, let alone the possibility of some banal penance doled out - neutered Hail Marys and sanctimonious Bible passages about denying the carnal desires of the flesh or trusting in God that he doesn’t believe in. His nerves are aflame every time he lays eyes on the priest, his memories of their single night together overflowing like a pot left on the stove over high heat. 

He takes a sip of his coffee, and wishes there was a splash of whiskey or gin in it. Christ, how he wants to drink.

“I can’t believe he asked for an illegal drug after we discussed the money.” Wendy says, checking her watch. “I didn’t expect a priest to be such a loose cannon.”

“Me, neither. Sorry.” 

“Don’t be. If someone who works for Gunn really, truly delivers a narcotic substance to him then we have grounds to bring the U.S. Customs into this investigation. People that Gunn doesn’t have access to.”

“You think this is a good thing?”

“Yes.” 

Bill studies Wendy’s tempered profile as she gazes keenly across the street at the parish. 

“You said we’d be stepping on some toes.” Bill says, shaking his head. “I didn’t expect it to go this far.”

“I hope you’re not thinking of backing out.”

“No, of course not. I’m just curious…”

“About?”

“Why you’re so invested in this case. You said there was bad blood between you and Gunn, but this is getting dangerous. It could ruin your career.” 

Wendy takes a sip of her coffee, and keeps her cool, hazel eyes focused on St. Stephen’s. She barely lets a hint of vulnerability slip, but he sees her throat bob and her pulse tick faster. 

“I told you it was personal to me.” She says, “He hurts people, Bill. And he has no remorse about it. That’s all you need to know.”

Bill frowns at the guarded response, but he doesn’t have time to dig further.

“Ah, this must be it.” Wendy says waving a hand at the truck pulling into the church parking lot. 

Bill directs his gaze across the street. Holden is coming out of the church to greet a burly man in denim coveralls. The guy has dark hair and a Neanderthal-like ledged brow. Dark, pitiless eyes. Even from the distance, Bill feels the sick jolt in the pit of his stomach. 

“Shit.” 

“What is it?” Wendy asks. 

“That’s him. The guy.” Bill says, “Well, one of them who jumped me a few weeks back.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“I think we’ve identified Gunn’s errand boy.”

They watch as the man opens the bed of the truck to reveal milk crates stacked full with canned and boxed goods. 

“What’s this?” Wendy murmurs.

“The food bank.” Bill says, “I assume the drugs are hidden in the delivery.”

“That’s a fine cover.”

Holden shakes hands with the lumbering man, and they part ways. Holden carries the boxes back into the church while the man gets back into the truck. 

“Let’s go.” Wendy says. 

Bill leaves a few bills on the table, and they go outside to where her car is waiting. All at once, Bill is relieved they’d driven Wendy’s more posh coupe rather than his own conspicuous sedan which the thug might have recognized. She lets him drive, however, to maintain the cover that they’re a couple out for lunch. 

The thug drives out of downtown, and it quickly becomes clear where he’s going. 

They hang back when he pulls into the employee parking lot of the Brudos Paper Mill. Parking along the road, they walk back to the edge of the property where a chain-link fence obstructs unwanted visitors. Wendy pulls out her notebook and takes down the license plate of the truck. 

“I should have known that Brudos’ connection with Gunn goes deeper than the alcohol.” Bill says. 

“He owns the mill?”

“No, his father, Henry, is the owner, but he’s failing in his health. The operations are mostly handled by Jerry’s brother, John, but it's reasonable to assume that Jerry has brokered a deal between him and Gunn.” 

“I see. A little family affair.” Wendy says. She motions for Bill to follow her back to the car. “Let’s get back. I want to see the evidence for myself.” 

The drive back is short and subdued. Bill watches the landscape speed past with that hankering for a drink growing stronger. He can almost see the poison of Gunn seeping into this town, going down to the roots, spoiling everything. The just cause of their goal is what he should be focused on, but instead, he’s worried for Holden. This investigation keeps getting trickier, the stakes higher, the risk barely balancing out with the reward. If he were to get caught in a lie, Gunn has no shortage of thugs at his disposal to dispense of the problem. 

When they reach St. Stephen’s, Holden is waiting for them in the chapel. At the front of the auditorium, he’s down on the kneeler, his hands clasped reverently in front of him. He lifts his head when the door slams shut on Bill’s heels. 

“That was it?” Wendy asks, striding down the middle of the aisle to where he’s waiting. 

Holden nods his head. 

“Show us.” 

“Come with me.” Holden says, rising to his feet and nodding for them to follow him. 

They go back to the pantry where he’d left the milk crates of food supplies sitting on the counter, half-unpacked. He lingers by the door while Bill and Wendy walk over the crate and peer inside. 

A small, white bottle sits at the bottom of the crate. It’s labeled  _ heroin tablets - dissolves on the tongue!  _ like some kind of cheerful advertisement for delicious sweets. 

Wendy pulls out her camera, and snaps a picture. She takes her driving gloves from her coat pocket, and slips them on to retrieve the bottle. Screwing the lid open, she peers inside. 

“It’s the real deal.” Holden says from behind them. 

“How do you know?” Bill asks.

“The powder on the tablets. It has a distinct flavor. Besides, Gunn wouldn’t give me a placebo. It works to his advantage if I’m drugged and complacent.”

Wendy caps the bottle again. Unfolding a brown paper bag from her pocket, she drops the pills inside. 

“I’m going to take this to a friend who has connections with the US Customs Service.” She says, “As far as I know, Gunn’s reach doesn’t extend that far.” 

Holden nods. “It won’t be the end of the supply. I’ll make certain there’s more coming.”

Wendy shakes her head, a faint smile curling her mouth. “It’s a damn shame.”

“What?” 

“That God and the Church got ahold of you instead of the BOI.” Wendy says, “I would hire you into my department in a heartbeat.”

“I appreciate your confidence in me, but once this investigation is over I have no plans of continuing to be a spy.” 

“Understandable. We’ve put you in a difficult position, but you’re rising to the task.”

“I’m just trying to do the right thing. What God expects of me.”

Wendy nods. She says to Bill, “I’m heading into D.C.”

“I can drive myself.” Bill says, “I’ll be there in a little bit.”

“All right. See you there.” 

Once she leaves, Bill turns his gaze to Holden. Suddenly, it feels uncomfortable that they’re alone, and staring quietly at each other as if inspecting an opponent. 

“Would you like some tea?” Holden asks. 

“Sure.”

Holden jabs his chin toward the parsonage, and saunters out of the pantry. Bill follows him down the hall to the back door that leads into the apartment. 

“Have a seat.” Holden suggests, motioning to the sofa. 

Bill takes off his hat as he sits down, and turns it around in his hands while he waits. He can hear Holden moving around the kitchen, filling the teapot with water, dropping sugar cubes into porcelain cups. An unaccustomed rift of anxiety ripples through his chest, a knot pulling taut in his belly. His hands feel sweaty like a fumbling kid attempting to persuade his first date into going to the dance with him. 

Holden comes back once the teapot is heating up. 

“It’ll be just a few minutes.” He says. 

“That’s okay.” 

“Tell me about the man who made the delivery.” Holden says, “Do you know who he is?”

“He’s the same guy that beat the living shit out of me a few weeks ago.” Bill says. 

“That mugged you?”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly a mugging.”

“Gunn did that?” 

“Yeah, it was to send a message.” Bill says, scraping a hand through his hair. “It was right after I started drinking again. I threatened someone to get the alcohol. They squealed. Gunn reacted.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Holden asks, his mouth dropping open as he sits down on the sofa next to Bill. 

“Well, at the time I didn’t want you to … I don’t know - think less of me.” Bill says, scoffing quietly. “So much for that.”

Holden’s mouth purses tartly. 

“Anyway,” Bill clears his throat. “We followed him out to the mill. Not sure if he just works there, or if the mill is involved in some way. Probably the latter. This whole town is corrupt.”

“Except you.” 

Bill glances over sharply at Holden’s murmured response. “You know that isn’t true.”

Holden blinks, his eyes like an indigo night sky in the half-lit apartment. “Not like Gunn or Brudos.” 

“Not exactly. But I’ve destroyed your life, haven’t I?”

Holden lifts his chin, and looks at the opposite wall. The distant gaze can’t hide the flush creeping up his cheeks. His fingers glide nervously over his rosary. 

“Why haven’t you come to confession?”

“I don’t have anything new to confess. Besides, I’m working on the penance you gave me.” 

Holden’s nostrils flare softly. 

“I thought you’d want to know.” Bill says, gaze fixed on the gentle tremble of Holden’s mouth. “That you’d be happy. I haven’t touched myself or anyone else since.” 

“I told you to rely on God.” Holden says, finally looking at him again. “Only God.”

Bill stares at him, harshly. Frustration brews in his chest. All at once, he wants to grab Holden by his pure, white collar and pull it taut. He scoffs an indignant sound from the back of his throat. 

“What?” Holden asks. 

“Aren’t we done with that tired game?” Bill asks, “Holden - Jesus - I had my mouth on you. I-”

“Bill, stop.” Holden says, abruptly, rising to his feet. “Please, we’ve both confessed that sin before God. Once you are forgiven, you’re forgiven. That sin is wiped from the face of the earth, and God-”

“It is?” Bill demands, “Because I recall is pretty fucking vividly.”

Holden paces away, a nervous hand fluttering over his forehead. “I didn’t ask you here so we could talk about that.”

“Then why did you?”

“Because, Gunn has asked me to be close with you.” Holden says, casting him a scathing look. “To spy on you. I have to make it look as if we are-”

“Make it  _ look  _ that way?” Bill echoes, rising to his feet with incensed heat flaring in his veins. “So, it’s all just a show now, huh? If you didn’t  _ have  _ to, you would pretend as if what we have never existed?”

“What we have?” Holden whispers, “What is it you think we have, Bill?”

Bill huffs a sigh, his hands falling limply at his sides. 

“Bill, I can be your priest. I can even be your friend.” Holden says, “But if you can’t accept either of those, then I can’t be anything to you.”

Bill’s gaze falls toward the floor, his eyes stinging. “You’re right; and I’m sorry, but no, I can’t accept that.”

“Why not?” 

“Because.” Bill says, sharply, swinging his fuzzy gaze back to Holden, “I spent years loving David as a friend.  _ Years _ . It was torture, all right? When I finally got what I wanted - when we finally admitted to each other how we felt - it lasted less than two years. Two years in all the ten that I knew him. I can’t do that again. If our time is just as short as mine was with David then I’m not going to spend it being your friend, Holden. I’m not going to keep lying to myself.”

Holden’s mouth slips open as color rises on his cheeks and moisture gathers in the corners of his eyes. Bill grabs his hat from the coffee table, and marches for the door; but Holden’s hand on his arm stops him, and he whirls around to find himself looking into those limpid, blue eyes that have the ability to break him with a simple glance. 

“Bill, please, don’t do this to me.” Holden whispers, his voice shaking, “I value our friendship, our conversations, our understanding-”

Bill scowls, beginning to pull away. 

Holden grasps at his hands, drawing him close again. He ducks his head, heaving in a deep, shuddering breath. 

“You understand why I can’t do this, don’t you?” He presses, lifting tear-stained eyes to Bill’s again. “No matter how much I might want to, I  _ can’t.  _ This is my life. This church, God, my oaths. Please-”

“What about you?” Bill demands, “Huh? Where do you fit in with God’s plan? Your happiness, your needs - I mean, fuck, Holden, are you just supposed to spend the rest of your life completely alone, carving out pieces of yourself to hand to perfect strangers, going to the slaughter for people who couldn’t give a damn about you? Reaching for a  _ fucking  _ whip every time you so much as think about touching another human being?”

Holden lets go of Bill’s hands as a tear streaks down his cheeks. 

“You’re hurting right now, aren’t you?” Bill demands, grabbing him by the front of his cassock. 

“Yes!” Holden cries, twisting away. “Because of you, Bill! Because I can’t get you out of my mind!” 

They stare at each other, both of them shaking. 

Bill can’t move as Holden unbuttons the cassock with trembling fingers, and strips it from his arms. He yanks his neatly tucked shirt from his belt, and pulls it up. His belly is exposed, all white and quivering. When he turns around, Bill can see the ugly, red welts striping his back. 

“Look at what you’ve done to me.” Holden says, his voice dwindling to a tearful whimper as he turns his back fully to Bill. He hunches forward, pressing his spine to thin, beaten skin. Bill can see his ribs, his veins, every tiny abrasion and a few where the lick of the whip had broken skin. 

“Jesus.” Bill whispers out. 

All of the oxygen is robbed from his lungs. He reaches out a trembling hand to touch Holden’s back gently. 

Holden flinches, a pained whimper knotting in the back of his throat. 

Bill pulls the hem of the shirt higher, and Holden offers no resistance. Letting it come off over his head, he holds the shirt to his chest in shivering arms. His back is fully bared, exposing the lengths to which he had gone with the whip, the especially raw skin at his shoulders and upper back, the pebbling of goosebumps against cool air, and the old, white scarring underneath the new wounds. 

Bill shifts closer, grasping Holden by the shoulder to assure that he doesn’t move. He grazes a pair of fingers gingerly down the angry welts striping Holden’s right shoulder blade, but eases his touch as he reaches broken skin. The wound is almost fresh, scabbing struggling to take over crusted blood. 

“Jesus was tempted in the desert for forty days and forty nights.” Holden whispers, his voice shivering uncontrollably. “He never gave in, but I … I’m so-”

Bill swallows hard. A buzzing has taken over his skull. 

“Weak.” Holden finishes with a sigh. 

“Christ, Holden.” Bill curses, trying not to rub too hard with his fingertips as he follows the marred skin down Holden’s spine. “You’re not weak.”

“I am, I’m-”

Bill pulls him around, and cradles his face in his hands. “Look at me.”

Holden resists, his eyes squeezed shut. 

Bill gives him a shake, voice hardening, “Damnit, Holden. Look at me.”

Holden’s eyelids flutter open, taking the brunt of Bill’s frustration with glazed, unfocused eyes and a trembling mouth. 

“I’m the one that’s weak, and stupid, and reckless.” Bill whispers, “I am. You have to stop this.”

Holden’s eyelashes bat away the tears in his eyes, and Bill watches the transition from distraught to angry spark inside them in less than a second. He twists away viciously, and takes a staggered step back. 

“You do not tell me how to do my penance before God!” He says, his voice hoarse yet determined. “And if you are so determined to live with your sin, then get out. Get out of my house.”

Bill takes a staggered step back. His chest throbs like he’s been struck on the breastbone. 

“Go.” Holden repeats, his cheeks red with fresh rage. “Leave me alone.”

Bill nods, squinting hard against the moisture building in his eyes. He might as well be watching the blood gushing from David’s gunshot wound again - watching his love kill the person he cares for most in the world. 

He whirls around to yank the door open and make his escape. The hum in his ears grows louder, his own guilt and shame rising up to crush him. As he walks away from the church and down the street to where he left his car, he thinks of how fucking stupid he is, how he’s let temptations run roughshod across his good intentions again and again, how he can’t make himself say ‘no,’ how his self-control ran out years ago - and how one day it’s going to truly destroy him. 

^^^

After Bill leaves, Holden sinks down to the floor. He lays against the coarse carpeting and stares at the cobwebs forming underneath the feet of the couch for awhile, his head fuzzy from tears, and his pulse receding back into a sickened, dull thrum. His back aches from Bill’s touch, as if he’d been burned; and the thought that he can never take back that awful truth from Bill’s mind makes him want to vomit. 

He gets up eventually when the teapot starts whistling shrilly. 

Distantly, he recalls taking it off, and beginning to prepare his tea. Before he can take a sip, he loses interest in the taste. 

He goes to his bedroom, and opens the small, ceramic music box on the nightstand. Inside are a few trinkets, some coins, a necklace with a gold-plated pendant, the folded, waxy page of the Beatitudes taken from his first Bible, and at the bottom, three tablets. 

Selecting one, he weighs the tablet in his hand. It’s a flat disc, white and powdery, quick to dissolve. Even though years have passed, he still recalls the acrid taste that slowly dissipates into his saliva, the disconnected, buoyant relief that settles over him until he can’t sense the borders between reality and fantasy any longer. 

Holden presses his eyes shut as memory seeps from it’s buried tomb deep in his chest. 

_ “Don’t you feel it?” Dark, steady eyes hold onto him even while he floats away in the heroin daze. They’re warmer now. He’d once thought there was nothing behind them.  _

_ “Feel what?” He murmurs with numb lips. _

_ A hand trails down his bare back, touching him irreverently. “That fantastic passion burning in your veins … It feels like flying.”  _

_ “Yes, oh God, I feel free. I’ve never … never felt this way before.” _

_ “Then come with me.” Errant kisses scatter across his cheeks and mouth in between the compelling plea, “Tell me all your secrets. Let yourself be free. Feel every debased thing you’ve ever held yourself back from. It doesn’t have to hurt. I promise, you won’t regret it …” _

Like so many promises, those words had eventually run dry, every pledge turning back on him, his faith in someone else betraying him. One morning, he’d woken from the slip into euphoria with blood on his hands. 

Disgusted with himself, Holden digs the other two tablets out of the music box, and rushes down the hallway to the bathroom. He tosses the pills into the toilet, and jams the handle down with shaking fingers. 

The screech of horrified panic in his mind doesn’t recede until he watches the white tablets circle slowly downward until they disappear into the plumbing. He knows the end of that particular story, the way he’ll wake up feeling wasted and empty no matter how high he’d been flying hours before. It never lasts long enough to make the chase worthwhile; it only makes him itch for more. That’s why he’d tried so hard to give it up, why he’d been through the hellish torture of withdrawal to put that vice behind him. 

Tired and hurting, Holden goes back to the bedroom, and crawls onto the bed. He lays back against the sheets despite his aching back. Raising his hands towards the ceiling, he rotates his pale forearms toward his gaze. In the low light of the bedroom, he can see every white, horizontal mark scoring his arms in a crowded collection of ugly tracks. There’s barely an inch that isn’t scarred. It doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s just grotesque. 

He runs his fingertips along one arm, feeling out the mutilated terrain of his body. The memorized marks are comforting and familiar compared to the welts across his back. The genesis of their agony is far behind him, now a memoriam of the past - how real it was, how damaging. 

He can’t allow anything to drag him back down into the dirt, least of all Bill. Least of all his own failings. He can still pick himself back up from his mistakes and run to the arms of the Heavenly Father. He can redeem himself, one strike of leather at a time. 

^^^

On Sunday, Ted Gunn makes good on their agreement by showing up at Mass. He comfortably goes through all the motions of the kneeling, the prayers, the greetings, and the recitations, but Holden can see from across the auditorium that all of it is disingenuous. 

A few weeks ago, he cared. He’d expected himself to save this man’s soul from hellfire the way he tries to save everyone, but Bill’s voice keeps invading his mind:  _ sacrificing yourself for people who don’t give a damn.  _

He shouldn’t be using church as a bargaining chip, but if Gunn thinks it’s his weakness, that he can use it to continue exploiting Holden’s good will, it’s an advantage he has to take hold of. 

After the service, Holden finishes taking confession, and steps out of the booth to see him standing at the back of the sanctuary with Bill. 

Holden approaches carefully, watching the two of them with a nervous gaze. 

“I didn’t know you were much of a church goer.” Bill is saying, sizing up Gunn with abject disdain. 

“Well, I wasn’t until recently. Father Ford makes a compelling argument in the name of God. I’m sure you know what I mean.” Gunn replies, then smiles when he sees Holden approaching, “There he is.” 

“Good morning, Ted. I’m glad to see you here.” Holden says. 

“A wonderful sermon, Father.” Gunn says, “I, more than some people in this town, can attest to the fact that money truly is the root of all evil.”

“You were listening.” 

“Of course.”

“Good. I want everyone in the congregation to take my words to heart regardless of their status within the church.”

“I suppose you’ll want to discuss that.” Gunn says. 

“Not until you’re ready.”

“I’d like to discuss it now.” 

Tension seeps over the quiet hush of the sanctuary. Holden can see Bill prickling in his peripheral vision, but he keeps a reserved gaze trained on Gunn. 

“Of course. Would you like to come to my office?”

“Yes, please. Some privacy would be wonderful.”

“Right this way.” Holden says, motioning toward the back of the church. 

“Bill, it was good to see you.” Gunn says, casting Bill a saccharine smile. “Do tell Nancy and Brian hello.”

“The same to you.” Bill says. He nods at Holden, and their gaze meets momentarily before he ducks his head. “Father.” The tone of his voice reads  _ be careful.  _

“Bill.” Holden whispers the acknowledgement. 

Bill turns and walks out of the church, stamping his hat over his slicked down hair before he reaches the front doors. 

Holden swallows hard, and quickly leads Gunn toward his office before the man can read any slip of vulnerability on his face. 

Gunn pushes the door shut behind them, and surveys the office in much the same way as Bill had done on their first meeting inside these doors. The collar at Holden’s throat feels too tight as his gaze slips past the cherrywood cabinet to the books lining the shelf. 

“Where are you with him?” Gunn asks, absently picking up a hand-painted, ceramic bell Holden had acquired in Mexico. It dings softly before he sets it back down with disinterest and turns to cast Holden a penetrating stare. 

“Nothing unusual.” Holden says, “He comes to church, to confession, I sometimes counsel him privately. He hasn’t spoken of you or any plot to uncover what you’re doing.”

“I don’t think you’re looking hard enough.”

“What makes you think he’s investigating you again?”

“Because, I know men like Agent Tench. They don’t simply give up. It isn’t a matter of morality, but instinct. It’s what he is. A bloodhound. What do bloodhounds do, Father? They sniff out their prey.”

Holden considers Gunn’s heavy-handed analogy with squinted eyes. 

“He’s an alcoholic. It wouldn’t be in his best interest to purge the alcohol from this town.”

Gunn chuckles. “No, it wouldn’t. But he can’t help himself.”

“Why not?”

“It’s what he is. Being a federal agent is his identity, unlike myself who managed to divest myself of self-righteous notions in the name of my own prosperity. Beside all that, I know who he works under now. A brash, haughty woman named Wendy Carr who doesn’t know her place. I know what she thinks of me, and if she manages to get to the two of them aligned … I promise you, there’s more to uncover. You just have to dig harder.”

“It seems to me that you’re creating some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“How so?”

“If I dig too hard, I might arouse a suspicion that would escalate to the kind of investigation you’re worried about.”

Gunn purses his lips against a sigh, and saunters over to Holden. He puts his hands casually in his pockets, but his gaze is eviscerating, slipping over Holden’s face like a filleting knife. 

“You said this wouldn’t be a problem.”

“No.”

“I supplied you with the heroin, did I not?”

Holden lowers his head. “Yes.”

“Then-” Gunn seizes him by the chin abruptly, forcing Holden’s head up. He leans close, his breath warm and tart on Holden’s cheeks. “Look at me.”

Holden stares back at him, not flinching. 

“Then do what I fucking asked you to do. Bat those eyelashes at him and make him trust you. Seduce him. You understand?”

Holden’s throat is in knots, but he manages to nod. 

Gunn releases him, and takes a step back. With a deep breath and a thin smile, he’s the cool and arrogant politician again. 

“Very well. I’ll join your church like you suggested, but I want a return on my investment, Father. I want to know every detail.”

“Yes, of course.”

Gunn peruses Holden’s calm expression that’s betrayed only by his twitching fingers against his rosary. 

“Feeling the let-down now?” He asks. 

Holden doesn’t respond. He’s told enough lies already, and even lies told in necessity are still lies. 

Gunn gives a quiet laugh. “Just let me know when I should restock your supply, but don’t swallow all of those pills too quickly. I need you around.”

“I know when to stop.”

“Of course. That’s what every addict says.”

Holden’s gaze drops to the floor as Gunn turns to leave the office. He hadn’t taken the pills, therefore he has nothing to be truly ashamed of; only the notion had crossed his mind, and he might have succumbed at some point in the night when he was tossing and turning, unable to sleep, if he hadn’t flushed them down the toilet. He’ll need to be more careful with his impulses from now on. 

Holden goes back into the sanctuary after a minute to see if Bill had stuck around for confession, but the church is empty. He’s alone with the saints gazing down at him with pious sympathy from the stained glass. 

^^^

On Monday morning, Holden calls the house early. 

Nancy is still trying to persuade Brian out of bed for breakfast before school when Bill grabs the receiver in the hall. 

“Hello?”

“Good morning.” 

“Oh, hi.” Bill says, glancing at his watch with instant nerves striking him in the gut. “Something the matter?”

“No. Sorry it’s early. I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Yeah, me either.”

“Good. Then I’m not waking you.”

“Not at all. What’s going on?”

“I didn’t get a chance to talk to you after my conversation with Gunn on Sunday.” Holden says, his voice rigid with tension. “I thought you should know what we spoke about.”

“If it’s important to the investigation, yes.”

“He agreed to join the church like I asked, but he’s still paranoid about you. He thinks I’m not digging hard enough, and that you wouldn’t let go of investigating him so quickly. He’s convinced of it.”

“Fuck.” Bill mutters, “We need to throw him off the scent.”

“How do you suggest we do that when we both know he’s exactly right?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure it out.” Bill says, shooting a harried glance over his shoulder as Nancy calls for him to come to breakfast. “Look, I gotta go.”

“Bill-”

“Talk to you later.” Bill says, briskly. 

He hangs up the telephone, and goes into the kitchen. 

“It’s getting cold.” Nancy says, nodding pointedly at the plate of eggs and bacon. 

“Sorry. Work stuff.” 

“They’re keeping you mighty busy.” Nancy remarks. “I thought the fraud department was supposed to be slower.”

“Yeah, me too.” Bill mutters. 

He downs his breakfast quickly, and says hasty goodbyes to Nancy and Brian. Driving down the road, he hesitates to commit to the plan forming in his mind, but it’s the most plausible conclusion he can arrive at to relieve Gunn of the idea that he’s a fully committed federal agent investigating the ongoing corruption in Papermill. 

A few miles down the road, at the burnt-out house, he pulls off behind the barn. Marching down the cellar steps, he finds the box where he’d stashed the gin from his last visit to the Bateson cabin. He has two whole bottles. More than enough. 

Bill holds one of the bottles in his hand for a long moment, pressing his eyes shut against the voice of his conscience. If he were being honest, he would admit that this decision has very little to do with Gunn, and more to do with his shortcomings. He could very well fake being drunk and achieve the same result, but the purpose of the investigation gives him an all too welcome license to relapse. 

Besides, his sole reason for quitting had leant on his guilt, and later, more heavily onto Holden. Holden had been convinced of his innate goodness; and for awhile, Bill had been convinced that he could change his ways and rise to the challenge, but that falsified image is shattered. Pursuing his denial no longer seems feasible, or even reasonable. 

Bill cracks the lid open, and brings the bottle to his lips. 

Goddamn, it tastes like relief. The pining he’d been feeling in his chest for weeks abates abruptly as the alcohol burns down the back of his throat. He takes another sip, and sighs aloud. 

Climbing back up to the grass, he sits with his back against the siding, and stares out into the field. The weather is getting cold again. It’s been a year since he left to chase after Speck, six months since his return from Wopsononock Mountain. He’s back to the beginning. 

Tilting his head back against the coarse wood, Bill looks up at the sky and laughs aloud. Silently, he curses God because his life must be one long, sick cosmic joke. Roll the ball up the hill, watch it fall back down again. Try not to get crushed. Rinse, repeat. It will never end until he shakes off this mortal coil. 

He drinks just enough because he knows his limits. Then he staggers to his car, and gets behind the wheel. He drives carefully to D.C., turning a thirty-minute drive into a forty-minute one. When he arrives at the DOJ building, he’s over an hour late to work. 

The alcohol has set in deeply. His head is buzzing, forcing him to concentrate hard on each step as he walks the busy halls down to the fraud department. A few other agents give him bewildered glances while he shuffles past them to his desk, undoubtedly recognizing his zig-zagging, inebriated gate and the blank glaze in his eyes. 

He sits down heavily in his chair, and rubs both hands over his face. His cheeks are half-numb, tongue thick and coarse with gin. 

“Agent Tench?” Wendy’s sharp tone draws his head up slowly. 

He squints across the bullpen at her. She’s standing in the doorway of her office, her arms crossed. 

“A word?”

He climbs back to his feet, and focuses on his feet carrying him to where she’s standing. She waves him inside, and pushes the door shut quickly behind him. 

“What happened?” She demands, “You’re an hour late.”

“I’m sorry. There was a … I got delayed- … Traffic, you know-”

She frowns at his meandering explanation, but goes to sit behind her desk. 

“I reached out to my friend in Customs.” She says, “He’s taking it to his superiors this morning, but I think we’ll have legitimate, outside help in a few days’ time.”

“That’s great.” 

“I also looked into the license plate of the man who delivered the heroin. His name is Boris … Brudos.”

“Related to our very own Sheriff Brudos?”

“A cousin by what I can figure out.” Wendy says, “He lives in Alexandria, not Papermill which is probably why you don’t know him. He’s been picked up a few times - public intoxication, a few bar brawls, suspicion of extortion, but nothing concrete has ever stuck. He isn’t employed at the mill, however, leading me to wonder what exactly he was doing there last week.”

Bill nods. He’s having trouble concentrating on the conversation. He staggers over to the desk, and tries to sit down on the chair opposite Wendy. He nearly slips off the front edge of the cushion, managing only to grab onto the arms to hoist himself back up with a grunt. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Wendy asks. 

Bill leans forward, and braces his elbows against his knees. Cradling his face in his hands, he utters a low groan and shakes his head. 

Wendy circles around the desk, and stands over him with her arms crossed. 

“Bill,” Her tone holds a warning. 

He peels his fingers back from his eyes to look at her. 

“Are you drunk?” She asks, her eyes narrowing with disgust. 

“Wendy, listen-”

“My God, Bill. What is wrong with you?” She demands, hands flying into the air. “This is our place of work. The BOI, for Christ’s sake!”

“Gunn is getting suspicious.” He says, holding out a placating hand. “Holden told me. He’s convinced I’m still investigating him, and he wants Holden to dig deeper for proof. I have to throw him off.”

“By getting inebriated and showing up to work barely able to walk a straight line?”

“Yes. I want you to send me home.” Bill says, “Two days off, no pay. Make it public so everyone in the department knows.”

“You’re serious?” She asks, her voice falling down to a whisper. “Bill, this could seriously harm your reputation.”

“My reputation. That I’m some kind of fucking hero?” Bill asks, leaning back in the chair with a heavy sigh. “I’m not, Wendy.  _ This  _ \- what you’re seeing right now - it’s a lot closer to the truth.”

She leans back against the desk, a worried frown creasing her brow. “I don’t like this, Bill.”

“Gunn already thinks very little of me. If I reinforce that belief, he’ll be more ready to believe it than any other lie I try to spin. Please, Wendy.”

She straightens, and draws in a deep breath. Pressing her eyes shut, she says, “All right.”

He nods his encouragement. 

She works up another deep breath before raising her voice, “I want you to get out of my sight!” 

He’s startled for a moment before realizing that she’s jumping feet first into his suggestion. 

“Now, Agent Tench!” She adds, still not looking at him. 

He gets up as quickly as he can from the chair, and pulls open the door of the office. 

“Two days without pay! And if I ever smell booze on your breath again, a light paycheck is going to be the least of your problems.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He ducks his head as he feels every eye in the bullpen turn to him. 

As he shuffles toward the door, Wendy adds, “That goes for everyone else in this department. If anyone thinks they can slip unprofessional behavior past me because I’m wearing a skirt, you’re dead wrong. I will throw you on your ear, newspaper accolades be damned!”

Bill bites back a smile as he slips out of the fraud department. He’ll have to call her later to congratulate her on her award-winning performance, but for now, he has two empty days ahead of him and a half-drunk bottle of gin waiting for him in the cellar. 


	14. our bodies, shaped from clay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holden's denial and defenses suffer a critical breach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems only fitting that I should post one of my favorite chapters today! I hope you enjoy and have a very merry Christmas 🎄💚

On Tuesday morning, Holden’s eyelids slip open to the wash of sunlight through his window, the fuzzy image of the whip lying on the nightstand, and the tender patch of skin on his thigh aching. 

Last night, he wore the leg cilice for two hours. He had to switch tactics, not only because his back couldn’t stand one more strike of the whip, but also because he’s growing used to the pain, anticipating the hissing lick of the leather, learning to accommodate the burn. 

Not that his desperate attempts at forestalling relapse had much mattered. No amount of pain could drive from his mind the look of horror on Bill’s face when he saw the welts on Holden’s back, let alone his low, contrite voice, his touch, his concern. It isn't so much shame that he contends with, but a yearning to relive the moment when Bill’s fingers touched him with such reverence and gentility. All of it swamps Holden’s mind in suffocating detail, making him sick to his stomach. 

As he’s making breakfast, the shrill ring of the telephone interrupts his scattered thoughts. He takes the eggs off the stove, and grabs the receiver. 

“Hello?”

“Good morning, Father,” Nancy Tench says, her tone tenuous with anxiety from the other side of the line. “It’s Nancy. I’m sorry to call you so early.”

“It’s all right. I’m an early riser. What’s the matter?”

“It’s Bill.” Nancy says, a sigh crackling over the telephone. “I’m worried and upset, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“What about him?” Holden asks, his neck stiffening. 

“It’s bad, Father. He’s drinking again, and he’s been suspended from work for two days. I don’t know what to do. He won’t listen to me.”

Holden presses his eyes shut, disappointment and resignation diffusing in his veins. He shouldn’t be shocked with yet another relapse, but he doesn’t want to believe it - more accurately, he doesn’t want to believe it circles back around him to him and their last conversation. 

“Is he there with you now?”

“Yes. Well, he’s still asleep. Passed out cold.” Nancy says, her voice hardening. 

Holden considers the information, his chest thudding. He should keep himself at a distance from this situation; but he’s their priest, and Nancy is all but begging for his help.

“Wake him.” Holden says, “See if he will come here. I’ll try to talk to him.”

“What if he’s upset I called you?”

“It’s for his own good. If he won’t listen to you, perhaps he’ll listen to me. I’ll do my best to counsel him.”

“Thank you, Father.” 

After they hang up, Holden paces back to the kitchen counter, and puts his fists down on the edge with a muted grunt. Some needy violence stirs in his chest, a frustration and unquelled yearning he can’t displace. 

He’s done nothing but try to help Bill from the beginning, but his own self-sacrificing martyrdom has all but ruined him. He’s let Bill ruin him. Let Bill take every scrap of his indulgent compassion and burn it like kindling in the fire of his desires, leaving Holden raw and broken. The least he could do is stick to his sobriety. 

He eats as much of his breakfast as he can stomach, but he can really only sip feebly on his tea while he waits for whether or not Bill will show up at his doorstep. He paces the living room, then forces himself to sit down and look over the Bible passages he’s picking out for Sunday Mass. The words are a blur on the page, a tangled jumble of disjointed phrases that have never made less sense to him. He wonders how long he can go on like this, pretending to be a puritan priest before the people of this town when he and Bill know the truth. 

An hour later, a heavy knock at his door startles him from his thoughts. He gets up quickly, and goes to the door. 

Bill stands on the welcome mat, his hat between his hands. He looks disheveled this morning, his hair uncombed and tumbling against his forehead. His eyes are bloodshot and puffy, resentment and curiosity opposed deep inside them. 

“Father.” 

“Bill, come in.” Holden says, standing aside. 

Bill shuffles across the threshold, and hangs his hat on the hook by the door. 

“This isn’t what you think.” He says. 

Holden crosses his arms. “It isn’t?”

“No. It’s for the case. The incriminating evidence you need to give Gunn to throw him off our scent.”

“You drinking is for the case?” Holden echoes, disbelief reflecting clearly in his tone. 

“Yes. It had to be convincing.”

Holden studies Bill’s face, the deceit cleanly shining through. He’s a pretty good liar, just not in this instance. Or maybe he’s just not trying very hard. 

“Couldn’t you have faked it?” 

Bill walks past him, and sits down on the couch with a weary sigh. He scrapes his hands through his hair. 

“Does it matter? It’s done.”

“And how do you feel? Two wrongs don’t make a right, Bill. You can’t look up at God and tell Him this was for a good reason. I thought you were really committed to quitting.”

“I was.”

“Then what happened?”

Bill scoffs a laugh, and rubs a hand over his face. 

“What?” Holden presses. 

“What do you mean ‘what happened?’” Bill demands, casting him a scathing glare. “You know, Holden; so you can drop the act. We haven’t been doing this little song and dance for the last six months for you to think that I care about my sobriety because of my  _ family _ .”

Holden clenches his jaw, and glances away. He does know, but he doesn’t want to confront it. 

“What’s my family anyway?” Bill asks, spreading his hands. “Two sexually incompatible people who detest each other, and the orphaned son of my best friend - who I was sleeping with before he died, by the way. Some happy fucking family.”

“Bill, you cannot put this on me.” Holden says, his voice trembling. “It isn’t fair.”

“I’m not. You have no fucking idea how much I hate myself right now.”

“That isn’t what God wants for us … It isn’t what  _ I  _ want for you.”

Silence settles over the parsonage. Holden gradually looks up from the carpet to see Bill looking back at him with tired, damp eyes. 

“Why am I here?” Bill whispers, rising slowly from the couch. 

Holden is bolted in place as Bill draws closer, his hands twitching in and out of fists at his sides, his gaze like a branding iron that’s gradually sinking past flesh and into bone. Holden swallows convulsively. 

“Huh?” Bill presses as he closes the space between them. “Tell me, Holden. Am I here so you can take my confession? So I can ‘give my sins to God’? So you can tell me what a fucking unrepentant sinner I am?”

Holden shakes his head. “No, I …”

“Then what do you want?” 

Holden presses his eyes shut as Bill leans so close that his breath is a hot breeze on his cheeks. His body screams,  _ Kiss me. Go on. Kiss me so hard it hurts!  _ But he can’t speak the words; he can only think them, and quickly smother them the way he has been doing for months. 

“You want to hurt me.” Bill whispers, his voice hoarse and tangled, hardly audible. 

Holden opens his eyes wide. 

“Yeah, you’re pissed off, right? I broke my promise again. I touched you. I ruined your life. I defiled you, and stole from the hand of God. What the fuck else would you want to do?”

“Bill, no, I-”

“Yes.” Bill hisses, jabbing a forceful finger into Holden’s chest. “Yes, you do. Don’t tell me those other times were about penance or mortification before God. Don’t tell me didn’t  _ fucking  _ enjoy it.”

Holden flinches away, choking out a sound of consternation. He can’t get his mouth to close on the rising revelation of brutal honesty. 

All at once the anger in Bill’s eyes lapses. His shoulders droop, and he presses his fingertips hard to his eyes. 

“Fuck. I’m sorry.” He whispers. 

Holden lifts his chin as he watches Bill begin to crumble. A steady, heavy diffusion of satisfaction steeps in his chest. He can’t remember any of the words from the Bible lying on the coffee table no more than three feet from where he stands. He can’t remember his oaths, or God, or purity. His body wants to explode with the dull thrum of need. 

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He whispers, his voice sounding weird and distant in his head. “I want to correct you. The Bible says, spare the rod and spoil the child; and it seems to me that you’ve been spoiled far too often in your life.”

Bill slowly lifts his gaze from the carpet, his mouth trembling. “So you-”

“No, not another word.” Holden says, sharply, taking a quick step closer so that he can secure Bill’s racing gaze. “Go down the hall to my bedroom. I have the whip in there. Undress and lie down.”

Bill’s chest rises with a stammered breath, and his mouth moves wordlessly for a long moment before he nods obediently. 

“Yes, Father.”

“Go.” Holden says, nodding his chin toward the hall. 

Bill swallows hard, his gaze lingering hesitantly on Holden’s steely expression before he turns and walks down the hall. 

Holden stands in the middle of the living room for a long moment after he leaves, breathing deeply, trying to pace himself. He’s clinging to his faith by his nails, this threadbare shroud of pretending that what he’s about to do is a penance and nothing more; but he goes into the kitchen and retrieves the olive oil from the cabinet - the same type of oils that he could consecrate and use to bless the sick - because he knows he’s already surpassed a border he can’t come back from. 

When he enters the bedroom, Bill is lying on his stomach in the creamy, white sheets, stripped down to his shorts. His hands are stretched above his head, bunching impatiently around the edge of the pillow. He peeks over his shoulder at Holden with astringent blue eyes that aren’t nervous, but filled with wicked anticipation. 

Holden sets the bottle of oil on the nightstand, and exchanges it for the whip. He runs his fingers through the thin, leather straps that extend no more than a foot and a half. The handle is wood with a thick, knotted end, easily wielded. 

He can feel his pulse in his temples, the dizzying rush of power washing over him. 

Crawling onto the edge of the bed, Holden surveys Bill's prone position below him. His eyes snag on the fading, purplish-yellow bruises on the back of his thighs.  _ Every time Holden marks him, he comes back for more just as he’s healing.  _

Holden straddles the wounded thighs, and applies only a measure of his weight. 

Bill grunts quietly into the pillow, his shoulders stiffening. 

Holden peruses his bare back. The line of his suntan is clearly defined at the base of his neck, and the wash of skin across his back is pale save for scattered freckles. An ugly, puckered scar midway down nestles near his spine, evidence of the bullet that nearly ended his life in Germany. The muscles underneath are rippling, dense, and powerful; he could resist this punishment if he wished. He could overpower Holden in seconds, only he’s choosing to submit like a disobedient child, taking the punishment willingly - the thought makes Holden burn hotter beneath his blacks and his starched collar. 

Bill shoots a glance over his shoulder as the prelude of discipline waxes in silence. 

“Ready?” Holden murmurs. 

Bill nods. “Don’t hold back.”

“I won’t.” Holden says, draping the leather straps over Bill’s right shoulder, and garnering a shudder. “You’re going to be begging by the time I’m done with you.”

Bill’s fingers curl around the rungs of the headboard, barely bracing himself when Holden lifts the whip and brings it back down again. The straps crack across pale skin that immediately blooms with long swaths of pink. Bill’s muscles bunch and shiver, back arching impulsively from the fiery touch. 

Holden secures his grasp on the whip. His hand is already sweating profusely, his body rippling with heat under his clothes. He focuses on the stain of red seeping across Bill’s skin, and lays out another hard strike. 

Bill groans into the pillow. His knuckles go white. “Oh, fuck-”

Holden’s cock gives an audacious twitch that he tries to ignore, but as he finds a sharp, steady pace with the whip, he can’t help the way his focus dwindles down into the muted, pained whimpers emerging from Bill’s throat.

It’s impressive, the way Bill stays rooted in place beneath the brutal, cutting impact of the leather straps quickly turning his back red and welted with burning agony. His spine snaps taut beneath each blow, but he keeps himself in place with his hands wrapped around the headboard. Every pained sound is muffled in the pillow, divesting Holden of the full pleasure of hearing him cry out. 

Holden pauses with the whip, and watches the red disperse in a webbed flush across Bill’s back. When the room is quiet except for Bill’s shivering breaths, he grazes his fingertips up the taut cleft of his spine where he’s arched and stiffened with stinging pain. Bill flinches beneath him, hips bumping up against Holden’s weight on top of him in a pleasing buck of resistance. 

“Shh, lay still.” Holden murmurs, tracking his fingertips higher, between Bill’s shoulder blades. 

Bill stiffens against the sheets as Holden’s touch winds up and over his shoulders, against his nape, into his hair. 

Sinking his fingers into the longer strands at the crown, Holden lifts Bill’s face up from the pillow. He leans forward to whisper in Bill’s ear, “Keep your head up like this. I want to hear you.”

Bill sucks in a shuddering breath past his clamped jaw, but nods against the firm grip Holden has on his hair. 

“Yes, Father.” He chokes out. 

Releasing Bill’s hair, Holden leans back, and situates himself more firmly on Bill’s backside. His cock pulses dully in his trousers, an aching bassline that’s not yet devolved into abject need though he imagines it would take little more than a few strokes to get him completely hard. He tries to push it from his mind for now. 

Flexing his fingers around the handle of the whip, Holden flicks the leather straps gently over Bill’s back. The individual strands of the whip spread out across incarnadined flesh, slithering like slender snakes over the dips and curves of his spine and shoulders. Holden drags it softly down his lower back, letting the texture and sensation sink into Bill’s tender skin before the snaring brutality of the punishment returns. 

Bill cries out sharply at the next strike, a quick and hard lash of the whip landing fully across the middle of his back. His head drops toward the pillow before popping back up again, eager to please. 

Holden bites against his lower lip to contain his own giddy sound of need climbing his throat, and revitalizes his focus on the punishment. He counts them out in his head, signifying each one over a different patch of skin, watching the pink blossom into red and the welted areas rise into raw irritation. Bill flinches, arches, and moans with each one, his hips squirming pleasingly under Holden. 

When Holden pauses to give him a moment to breathe, he lays still, shivering, whispering, “Oh, fuck ... Holden-”

“Hurts?” Holden guesses, easily. 

Bill nods, weakly. 

“You’re not begging yet.”

“No …” Bill whispers, raspily. He casts a faintly wet glance over his shoulder, his mouth curling against the pain. “You’re going to have to try harder than that.”

“Is that a challenge?”

He seems to regret his defiance, “No, it’s just-”

“You want it harder?”

Bill breathes through his nose, his eyes squeezing shut. He gives another staggered nod of his head. 

“Mm-mm.” Holden murmurs, shaking his head. “I’m going to need to hear you say it.”

Bill’s eyelids flutter open, a familiar impertinence glittering in his eyes. “Holden, come on-”

“No. Say it.”

Bill shifts underneath him, his brows pinching with conflicting turns of humiliation and need. His cheeks are rosy as he whispers, “I want-… want it … harder.”

Holden purses his lips against a smile. Bill’s voice sounds smaller and weaker than ever before, entirely subjugated. 

He resumes with the whip, doling the strikes out harder than before, but not so hard that Bill can’t take it. He’s so stubborn that he’s probably clinging to the idea that he’s been through worse; but he’s never been through anything like this, Holden imagines, and he’s going to drive that confidence from Bill’s mind. He’s going to make it so that by the time this encounter is over, Bill won’t be able to say anything but a broken plea. 

Through the next series of lashings, Bill’s punctuated cries falter and fade into each other, devolving down into one long, strangled whimper. Valiantly, he keeps his head up just as Holden had ordered, and allows the sounds to run free of his gasping lips. 

When both shoulders are welted and red, almost to the point of breaking skin, Holden stops again. 

Bill shivers underneath him, his muscles drawn and bunched with anticipation of the next strike. He shoots a hesitant glance over his shoulder when Holden touches the hot, tortured flesh with his fingertips. 

“Oh, fuck-” Bill bites out, his eyes squeezing shut. 

He hardly breathes as Holden traces the length of his punished back, following the dip of his spine and it’s gradual rise to the waistband of his shorts. Holden tugs on the underwear gently. 

Bill’s eyes spring open. He’s hanging onto the headboard like it’s his last lifeline, knuckles blanched and hands shaking. 

“Take these off.” Holden orders, softly. 

“What …” Bill chokes out, his gaze racing to meet Holden’s, “What are you …?”

“I’m going to punish you.” Holden says, “In a way you’re not going to forget. Isn’t that what you want?”

Bill’s nostrils flare. The crimson of his cheeks matches his back, but he doesn’t protest as he lifts his hips far enough to allow his hands underneath to slip the buttons open. He hesitates a second before pushing the shorts down over his backside. 

Holden clenches his jaw while he helps Bill remove the underwear from his ankles. His gaze wanders over the rounded swells of his backside, skin all pale and unblemished compared to the raw red of his back. 

Bill avoids his gaze, eyes focused straight ahead on the place where his fingers are frozen around the rungs. He’s shivering in humiliation and pain. Holden can almost taste it seeping out of him. 

“Get up.” Holden says, “Knees under you.”

Bill’s gaze finally reaches Holden’s, wide with mounting shock and shameful need. His mouth moves in empty protest before he chokes out the two, staggered syllables of Holden’s name. 

“Do it.” Holden says, leaning back on his heels beside Bill’s trembling body. 

Bill frowns, seeming to consider whether or not to obey until he submits and gathers his knees under himself. 

“That’s good. Keep your head down.” Holden says, waving at Bill’s rising shoulders. 

Bill settles with his hips raised, his knees tucked under him. He buries his face in the pillow once more, and Holden doesn’t bother ordering him to unbind his mouth again. There’s only so much humiliation he can take at once, only so far Holden can push before he breaks the boundaries of this illicit punishment. And terribly, incurably, he wants it to go on. 

Holden moves on his knees behind Bill, holding the whip in a death grip. His gaze sweeps over Bill’s arched spine, his displayed backside, the pale thighs marred by half-healed bruises, and finally - oh Jesus, finally - the dangling, tender sacs of his testicles, and the rock hard length of his cock. 

Holden’s veins explode with feverish arousal, and he martials his composure with a steadying breath. 

Draping the straps of the whip over the base of Bill’s spine, he drags it slowly downward. The leather slips over his backside, in between the cheeks, and brushes up against the backs of his thighs, drawing a muted moan from deep in Bill’s chest. He leans forward, his body stiffening against the whip touching him somewhere new. 

Holden tries not to touch him, but his hand latches over the fleshy swell of the left asscheek. Holding Bill stationary, he drags the whip between his thighs, fully across his twitching cock and balls. 

“Oh, fuck…” Bill curses into the pillow, his hips arching away from Holden’s grasp. “Holden - Jesus-”

Holden draws him back into place. Bracing his palm against the taut dip in Bill’s spine, he rises to his knees so that he can get a good angle with the whip. He begins to bring it down deliberately, striking mostly across Bill’s ass, but including a few softer blows across the back of his faintly bruised thighs to make the whimpers and moans fully sing from his chest. 

His own cock tugs deliberately as he doles out each strike of the whip, letting the flick of the errant straps get dangerously close to Bill’s genitals. The panicked desire in his veins has eased from a chaotically burning fire to a persistent, aching thrum, a knife pressing to his throat until he complies. He’s barely clinging to his sense of control over this moment, his own desires, and the thought that this is solely punishment has sunk well below the waves of need. He lashes out now with the singular intent of watching Bill shudder and hearing him moan. 

Bill’s hardened exterior fragments, leaving the small core of the man behind the façade, a person bent on his own destruction and his awful desires. He cries out freely, hips jolting with every blow, body trembling and arching, but his cock throbbing all the same. Holden can see him twitching in between strikes of leather, his balls getting all taut and swollen with mounting need. It’s more satisfying than Holden had ever imagined in his dreams. 

He stops, his cock aching against his trousers. He’s sweating, head buzzing, belly swarming with need. The song and dance is over. 

“Turn over.” He orders. 

Bill collapses from his knees, and whimpers softly as he rolls onto his back. His face pinches with pain at the contact of his raw shoulders against the sheets. 

Holden grasps him by one knee, and stretches his legs open. Settling between them, he gazes down at Bill’s trembling body, his pale eyes turned upward in rapt attention and abject arousal. He looks beautiful, Holden thinks, all wrecked and flushed, broken down and agonizingly aroused. His big, hard cock weeps against his belly, suffering with humiliating arousal. There’s no sign of the gritty, masculine BOI agent. 

Holden extends the straps of the whip across his heaving chest, trailing it slowly downward. 

“Fuck, Holden …” Bill murmurs, his eyes pressing shut and brow knitting in a scowl. 

“You never learn, do you?” Holden whispers, trying to stifle his own groan as he slinks thin strands of the whip over Bill’s engorged, throbbing cock. 

“Oh, fuck. Please-” Bill rasps out, hiding his face in his hands as Holden lifts the whip and drops it back down softly, just enough contact against his erection to make him tremble. 

“Please?” Holden echoes. 

A bit harder with the whip. The faint slap of leather on skin. 

Bill’s knees crush at Holden’s hips, trying desperately to close against the promise of something harsher. His voice is tangled up in a whine as Holden forces them open again, and uses the whip more decisively. In an instant, the knees are crowding shut again, his back rising into a taut, shuddering arch; only this time, the plea Holden had been searching for tumbles free. 

“Please. Fuck, please, Holden, don’t-”

Holden bites his lower lip, and retracts the whip. 

Bill’s hands drift from his face as the threat of further pain retreats. He blinks up at Holden with damp, dilated eyes. His open mouth expels thin rasps of breath fraught with need. 

“You’ve had enough?” Holden asks, tossing the whip onto the bed beside them. 

Bill nods, his throat bobbing with a desperate swallow. “Please …”

Holden smiles, and bends his head to press a kiss to Bill’s knee. “Please, what? We’re done.”

“You know what I mean …”

Holden slips his hand against Bill’s inner thigh, and presses his knees open against the sheets once more to expose his stiff cock. He doesn’t touch it, just gazes at it’s delicious length and thickness, the way it’s squirming with the pulse of blood and need, aching just for him. 

“You mean this?” Holden asks, glancing up to meet Bill’s wildly desperate stare. 

“What else?” Bill grinds out. 

“I gave you a penance. Two months. You’ve barely made it through one.”

“Yeah, you gave it to me. And you can take it away.” 

“That isn’t quite how it works.”

“Then why did you bring that?” Bill asks, waving an unsteady hand at the bottle of oil on the nightstand. 

Holden leans back on his heels, and draws in a deep breath. He can’t take any of this back now, but he clings to his hesitance. It’s been burned into his brain too many times that he should keep his oath of celibacy to God to discard it so easily; but he’s never wanted to discard it more than he does in his moment, and he’s already crossed the line. He’s so fucking hard it’s making him hurt. 

He reaches over to grab the bottle suddenly, need surging hard through his brain. 

“I brought it because I’m going to fuck you.” He says. 

Bill’s mouth slips open. “You’re … you’re going to-”

“You’ve violated me enough, don’t you think?” Holden asks, unbuckling his belt. 

Bill’s jaw moves from side to side. His eyes are narrowed, inspecting Holden’s movements with faint amusement. “So that’s the line, huh?”

“Yes, that’s the line.” Holden says, yanking down his zipper. “I can’t allow you to sodomize me, Bill.”

“But you can do it to me?”

“I can. And I’m going to.”

“Okay,” Bill whispers.

His cheeks are rosier than before, and Holden wants to keep him like this - struck dumb, submissive, compliant; tied to this bed, Holden’s prisoner for the rest of his days, entirely dependent on Holden’s good will for every orgasm he earns himself. 

Holden strips out of his trousers, but slows down when he reaches his underwear. His cock lunges against the thin barrier of fabric as Bill reaches out to push past his fumbling hands and hooks his own fingers on the waistband. 

Bill strips the shorts away, and Holden leans over him, trying to subdue his panting while his cock springs free. 

“Oh, God …” Bill whispers, his gaze wandering downward to watch Holden’s cock graze against his own. He reaches for the hem of Holden’s shirt. 

“No, leave it.” Holden whispers, batting Bill’s hands away from the garment despite the sweat gathering at his armpits and trickling down his spine. 

Bill frowns up at him, confused by the distinction. 

“At least take that off.” He mutters, motioning to the collar. 

Holden nods, and slips two fingers under the white, clerical piece to pull it from the neck of the shirt. He drops it over the edge of the bed. His neck breathes bare, and he realizes Bill has never seen him without it. 

He cautiously lifts his head to meet Bill’s intense gaze, but Bill is already urging the encounter onward. 

“Okay, that’s good.” He says, impatiently. “Hurry up.”

Casting aside the last of his caution, Holden grabs the bottle of oil. He pours a generous amount out across his fingers, and nods for Bill to lift his legs. 

Bill pulls his knees to his chest, and the red welts striping his backside become obscenely clear, matching the engorged flush of his cock. 

Holden nestles his wet fingers into the cleft, biting back a moan as he finds the puckered opening. 

“Mmm, fuck.” Bill grunts, his hips wiggling against the slight pressure. 

“You’ve done this before?” Holden whispers, nudging his fingers forward. 

Bill nods, keeping his eyes pressed shut. “You?”

“A long time ago.”

Bill’s eyes creep open now, snatching up the bit of honesty with an intrigued stare. 

“Relax.” Holden mutters as he pushes his finger forward, into the tight, hot clutch of Bill’s hole. 

Bill sighs out a groan through his nostrils, complying easily. His teeth pinch against his lower lip, a flinch of aroused pleasure.

Holden’s finger breaches him, and God does it feel good. A moan climbs Holden’s throat, but he swallows it back down as hard as he can. He focuses on pumping his oil slick finger in and out of Bill’s opening, working the stiff rim into limp compliance. Bill nudges down against the persistent penetration, choking on soft groans and frowning at the ceiling in concentration. 

Holden pauses to add more of the oil before pairing a second finger with the first. 

“Oh, Jesus.” Bill whispers, his voice husky and mangled with need. 

Holden’s fingers go in slowly, delving past the stray clench of muscles until he’s down to his knuckles, grinding up against the soft, swollen spot buried deep inside Bill’s body. 

“Fuck!” Bill groans out, grabbing hastily at his cock. He squeezes down at the root, his knuckles almost blanching with the force of it. “Holden, Jesus-”

“Too much?” Holden asks, withdrawing his fingers until he’s just rotating his wrist, gently working the rim open. 

“No, fuck, sorry. It’s just been a little while.” Bill whispers, blinking hard against the flush staining his cheeks. “I forgot how …”

“Don’t apologize.” Holden murmurs, thrusting his hand lazily. “I’m enjoying this.”

Bill looks down at him in surprise, but the shock is rapidly eclipsed by pleasure as Holden presses his fingers deeper, probing down for that sweet spot again. His back snaps taut, and his mouth stretches open in a wheezing sound of aroused agony. 

“Christ … have mercy.” Bill groans out, his fingers knotting in the sheets. 

“Don’t come.” 

Bill’s eyelids flutter open, taking in Holden’s heated stare. He trembles through an aroused wince as he glances down at his cock, the tip dribbling with a small, vicious stream of arousal. 

“Fuck …” He whispers, his head spilling back against the sheets. “That’s a tall fucking order. Look what you’re doing to me …”

Holden purses his lips against a smile. He can’t believe he waited this long to get Bill underneath him. He’s only been dreaming of it for six months, and the reality of it makes his inane little fantasies pale in comparison. 

Leaning back, he applies oil to his cock with a few lush strokes. 

Bill watches, licking his lips impatiently. 

When his cock is dripping wet, Holden sets aside the bottle, and crawls forward between Bill’s open thighs. His fingers are shaking as he guides his cock up against Bill’s slick opening, his body so flush with adrenaline that he’s half-dizzy. Every brush of contact and sensation is unique and tantalizing, so intense that he could cry. When he nudges his cock into Bill, the heat and pressure of it drives his head down against Bill’s shoulder, a helpless moan from his throat. 

Bill’s hands seize hold of him for the first time since this encounter began; one set of fingers card through Holden’s hair, dragging him close, while the other braces against his spine so that there’s no more than an inch of space between them while Holden’s hips thrust down. A whine stretches from his throat, the vibration of it rattling from his chest and into Holden’s forehead. It sounds quite different from all the other sounds Holden had drawn out of him this morning, more pleasing than he ever could have imagined or anticipated. 

And God in Heaven - his body is so hot, and slick, and tight around Holden’s cock like it’s swallowing him down, taking him in, intent upon rendering climax on his shuddering body in seconds. It destroys him in the way Bill always destroys him with his pale eyes, his angry passion, his needy hands, and helpless impulses; the way he’s both soft and hard, inviting and callous, devoted and imprudent - he takes Holden’s cock now as if they were meant to fit together, as if God had shaped their bodies from the clay to match the other, and the universe had only waited this long to bring them together. It feels too good and right to not be divine, ordained, predestined. 

Holden opens his eyes when Bill, clutching him by the hair, lifts his head up from his chest. 

“Look at me.” He murmurs, stroking Holden’s cheek. 

Holden shudders as he thrusts against him, his body moving and rocking to the rhythm of Bill’s with needy intention. He opens his eyes, finding Bill’s swallowing blue gaze mere inches away. 

“Look at me.” Bill repeats, his voice tangled up in a groan. “I’m yours. You can do whatever ….  _ whatever _ you want with me.”

Holden kisses him hard because he can’t stop himself. He wants to cry that Bill should be whispering this devotion to God - they both should - but he’s selfish and subdued by his desires; and he does want Bill all to himself, wants his pleasure wrapped up in his fist, his freedom defined by the shackles Holden chooses to unlock from his wrists. He wants it all, Bill’s every promise and lie. The truth - that they’d both wanted each other all along.

When their mouths break apart, Bill is gazing up at him pleadingly. He doesn’t have to say the words again. 

“Fuck penance.” Holden whispers, pressing his forehead to Bill’s. 

Bill’s pleased cry melds into a choked groan as Holden reaches between them and finds his cock all rigid and pulsing, takes it in his hand, jerks it fervently. 

“Yes, please ...yes-” He chants out, as if Holden could ever relinquish that statement now that he’s so far gone, now that they’re both sailing beyond the horizon of pleasure. 

With a few firm strokes, Bill is coming in his hand. His body clamps hard around Holden’s cock through the throes of climax, and wet heat jets in copious, slimy gushes between Holden’s fingers. He shudders, moaning louder than before, a sound that’s going to be burned into Holden’s memory. 

Holden draws back to watch his face, memorizing the flinch and flush, the tremble of his mouth sinking open in shocked pleasure, his eyes slipping open and shut against the meteor shower of bliss popping across his vision. 

Then Holden can’t think or breathe because he’s dragged down with him, the sweet friction of Bill’s hole stroking his cock triggering a deep, vicious orgasm that’s even stronger than the first one Bill’s mouth had wrung out of him. He crumbles against Bill’s chest, and sobs his pleasure while his cock gushes into the heated clutch of his bowels. 

Bill holds him close, and doesn’t let go. Even after it ends, they lay in silence, bodies entangled, softening, dripping, melting. Holden closes his eyes, not wanting it to end; he knows what’s coming, his own guilt and horror, his life fracturing apart at the seams. 

Bill seems content to let the seconds slip by in silence. Eventually, he rolls onto his side, displacing Holden from his chest, but quickly rights their positioning by draping Holden’s knees over his hip, and tucking his head to his shoulder again. 

Huddled together, neither of them make an attempt at speaking. Finally, exhausted from the week’s insomnia, Holden drifts off into dreams where reality scarcely matters. 

^^^

Bill startles awake though he’s not sure what pulled him from the warm cocoon of the midday nap. The parsonage bedroom is draped in warm, yellow light that illuminates dust motes sailing across undisturbed stillness. He can’t hear anything but the faint chirp of birds beyond the window. 

Pushing up onto his elbow, Bill scans the disheveled sheets beside him to see that he’s alone. The whip and the bottle of olive oil are gone from the nightstand. Holden’s blacks are on the floor. 

Bill jolts up from the sheets, wincing against a hiss of pain. His back burns with a constant pain that wanders like needles across his skin, but the rest of his body feels melted, no traction for his shame or guilt. He’s just worried that Holden isn’t with him. 

Crawling out of bed, Bill puts on his shorts and undershirt, and shuffles out of the bedroom. His brain is still fuzzy from dozing off for a few hours in the middle of the day, but he’s acutely aware of the fixtures of the apartment, how disconnected they now seem compared to the intimacy he and Holden had just shared in the bedroom. The awareness that the sanctuary of St. Stephen’s is only a brick wall away prickles at the back of his mind. 

Bill pushes aside any thoughts of God as he walks through the living room and kitchen. Both are empty, but the window over the sink provides a view of the back yard and cemetery. 

Bill steps outside barefoot. The sun is warm on his face though the September air is tinged with the slightest chill. A breeze drifts across the cemetery to meet with the edge of the stone path where Holden is kneeling, his body draped in a white nightgown, his head tilted back toward the sky. 

“Holden?” 

Holden doesn’t move except for the slight tremble in his limbs as the jagged pebbles dig into his bare knees. 

Bill lowers his head, swallowing back the nausea already climbing his throat. 

He’s reckoned with his guilt and shame, learned to live with it, but he shouldn’t have expected the same rebellious defiance in the face of God from Holden. He’s still a priest though the clerical collar isn’t at his throat. 

Crossing the short distance of the yard, Bill puts a hand on Holden's shoulder, and stoops down beside him. 

“Holden, come inside.”

Holden shakes his head. His eyelids flutter, glazed blue flashing from beneath the damp, dark fringe of his lashes. A slender tear breaks free and races down his cheek. 

“Hey,” Bill whispers, smearing it away quickly, “Holden, darling …”

Holden sniffs, his eyes jolting open at the affectionate tenor in Bill’s voice. 

“Come back inside with me.” Bill presses. 

“I can’t.” Holden whispers.

Bill sighs, frowning deeply. In the midst of their devious tryst, he’d almost convinced himself that he could completely wrest the notion of Holden’s purity from his mind. But who is he to try to replace God? 

He kneels down beside Holden, and a hiss whistles past his clenched teeth at the bite of stone into his kneecaps. He reaches over to grab Holden's hand. To his surprise, Holden doesn’t yank his hand away, but squeezes fervently in return. 

Minutes pass. Bill focuses on the distant shape of David’s headstone among the other markers in the cemetery. The breeze keeps rolling in through the branches, rattling leaves over head and bringing in the autumnal scent of the pine. 

Bill’s knees ache. One of the pebbles feels like it’s working it’s way past his skin and in between his joints. He takes as much as he’s able - as much as he’s  _ willing _ before he sinks down into the grass with a heavy sigh. Putting pressure on his backside comes with it's own acute rift of pain, and he rolls onto his side with his elbow under him

“Come on, that’s enough.”

Holden resists for a moment before laying down beside him. He throws an arm over his eyes, hiding the torn agony on his face. 

“Is it that bad?” Bill asks.

“What?” Holden mumbles. 

“To let me love you?”

Holden goes still. The arm planted over his face doesn’t move until Bill sits up, and smooths the hem of the gown away from his knee. One of the stones had broken skin, leaving a cherry dash of blood and a forming bruise. Bill presses his mouth to it like a kiss, and the coppery tang of Holden’s blood splashes on his tongue like a metallurgical cocktail. 

Holden stares up at him, aghast. 

Bill sucks off his knee, and swipes his tongue across his lower lip. In the midday sunlight, Holden’s pale skin is whitewashed and singly stained by red turning pink inside the drizzling glaze of saliva.

“The last time I loved someone, it ended in disaster.” Holden whispers. 

Bill sinks back down cradle Holden’s flushed cheekbone. “Me, too. But I can’t stop trying. I don’t know if that’s stupid or brave.”

Holden’s mouth quivers with a faint smile. “I wish I was like you.”

“What? Why would you want to be like me?”

“You’re so … strong.” Holden whispers, patting a hand over Bill's heart, “You don’t let anything defeat you. No matter what, you keep going. You could walk into the gates of Hell without wavering.”

“That’s not true.” Bill shakes his head. “God, Holden. I doubt myself all the time. I’m afraid of how my life is going to turn out, if I’m going to ruin it or not, if I’m going to drive everyone away in the end. I mean, hell, I should have died back in Germany. The minute that bullet went into my back, I thought  _ ok, this is it.  _ And I was fine with it because my life didn’t mean anything yet. The noblest thing I’d done was serve my country. I didn’t love anyone. Nobody back home missed me. But God gave me a second chance, or so they say, and I’ve been living on borrowed time ever since. I figure I’ve not done much with what I was given. I’ve royally fucked it up. But I’m here …”

Holden quivers as Bill leans down to kiss him ever so gently on the mouth. 

“You made me want to live again.” Bill murmurs, nuzzling his forehead against Holden’s. “You’ve made it worth it.”

Holden’s eyes press shut against fresh tears. “Bill …”

“Shh, don’t.” Bill silences him with a kiss. “Don’t tell me that isn’t love.”

Holden throws his arms around Bill’s neck, and hides his face in his neck, sobbing gently, “That’s the problem … I don’t really think I know what love means.”

Bill holds him close. “I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t … I don’t know-”

“Shh, it’s okay.” Bill soothes, rubbing a hand down Holden’s back. 

Holden hangs onto him until his crying subsides. When he pulls back, his eyes are bloodshot and glassy, his mouth quivering. “The only love I’ve ever been taught was from the Bible … God’s love, his redemption, his vengeance - the way a father loves a child. I don’t know how to be with someone.”

Bill wipes his tears, suddenly, ineffably angry. “Maybe that wasn’t love all along. I mean, look at yourself. You’re twisting yourself into knots trying to deny how you feel, hurting yourself-”

Holden pulls away, and sits upright, scrubbing his hands over his face to dispel the lingering tears. 

“If I don’t have God, what do I have?” He demands, cutting a glare over his shoulder. “I have nothing.”

“That isn’t true.”

Holden shakes his head, and runs nervous fingers through his hair. “My faith pulled me up out of the gutter, Bill. I would be dead if it wasn’t for God. Dead in some gutter in New York, drugged out, empty, forgotten like I never existed. I can’t turn my back on Him.”

Bill scrambles to his feet to follow Holden who is marching petulantly toward the parsonage. 

“Holden, wait.” He says, seizing hold of his wrist. 

Holden turns around, his lips taut against his white teeth and his cheeks tearful pink over his pallor. 

“Isn’t there some … in between?” Bill asks, trying to hold back the plea from his voice. “You can’t just do this to me and then walk away.”

“No, I …” Holden says, almost choking on the words as he looks down at their clasped hands. “I know, no matter how I feel in this moment, you’re going to pull me back in … it’s what you do.”

Bill tries not to smile. 

Holden draws in a deep, shaky breath, and looks back up at him. “I’m in this now, for better or worse. And I … I want to see you again - like this.”

Bill leans closer, grasping Holden’s hip through the thin barrier of the gown. “Me, too.”

Holden pulls away carefully, blushing. “We shouldn’t be doing this out in the open. Come inside so I can put some ice on your back.”

Bill willingly recants his touch. He quickly scans the surrounding grounds of the church, but doesn’t see anyone in sight, just the trees dancing in the wind and the silent audience of the cemetery resting peacefully. It feels like his lungs are finally taking in oxygen after holding his breath for too long. 

He follows Holden back into the parsonage. 


	15. mutually assured suffering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An offer from Gunn provides the opportunity to advance the investigation; meanwhile, Holden struggles with his feelings for Bill after what happened between them.

In the utter silence of St. Stephen’s, the scrape of the match lighting reaches the domed ceiling. Holden lights two candles, one for himself and, after some hesitance, one for Bill. Kneeling down before the altar and its two burning flames, he bows his head and clasps his hands before him. 

“Merciful Father, I come before you as a penitent sinner, weak, and easily swayed by sinful, fleshly desires.” He almost chokes on the words before pressing ahead, “I pray for strength, the renewal of my devotion, and your forgiveness, Dear God. I’m unsure now how I can ever make reparations ...” 

His eyes slip open, eyeing the pair of candles that blur into an ombre haze as he loses focus on the devout words. If the melting wax represents he and Bill, it’s an apt and harrowing allegory. Each time he thinks of Bill and the transgressions they perpetrated together, he burns. He burns, and burns, and burns. 

Frustrated, Holden gets up, and paces away from the flames set alight in purported loyalty to God. Where he’d once found great relief in prayer, he now only finds crushing introspection, the realization that he’s a hypocrite of the worst sort. He doesn’t want to defy God, who has given him so much, but he can’t properly beg for forgiveness either - not when he isn’t truly sorry. 

Holden looks up sharply when the heavy, wooden door at the back of the sanctuary creaks open. Drab light stretches inward before Ted Gunn’s figure fills the empty space. 

“Good afternoon, Father,” He says, his voice carrying across the pews with deceiving gentility. 

“Ted, how can I help you?”

Gunn lets the door ease shut behind him, and walks down the aisle with his gaze scanning the hollowed interior of the church. 

“It’s quite different here without so many people.” He observes, “A bit like a mausoleum.”

Holden frowns at the comparison. 

“I hope I haven’t interrupted you.” Gunn continues, motioning at the lit candles. 

“Not at all.”

“Very well.” Gunn sits down in front pew, and stretches his arms across the back. He regards Holden with a meticulous gaze.

“You don’t need to check up on me.” Holden says, choosing to cut past the pleasantries. “I was going to call you today.”

“Were you?”

“Yes. Bill and I … We spoke at length on Tuesday.” 

“About?” 

“Liquor.”

Gunn’s eyes squint with curiosity. “And?”

Holden draws in a deep breath, and reminds himself that this is the plan Bill orchestrated. He isn’t betraying any deep, dark secret. 

“He’s gone back to drinking again.” 

“Again?” 

“Yes, he’s quit a handful of times since returning from Pennsylvania. I’m afraid this relapse is worse.”

“How so?”

“The woman you mentioned that he works for - Agent Carr? - she discovered the indiscretion. He was suspended for two days with no pay.”

“Is that so?” Gunn ponders, rubbing his chin. A faint smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “A harsh sentence in this economy.”

“Yes. He was angry. He had some choice words about her. I don’t think they’re the friends you’re worried they could be.”

Gunn considers this suggestion for a moment before nodding. “Yes, well. He’s a brute. I imagine it wouldn’t sit well with a man like Tench to work under a woman.”

“Would it sit well with any man?” 

“None I know.” Gunn chuckles, “If I have my way, Father, she’s going to be pushed out in no time. No one wants a- …. Someone like  _ her  _ in the Bureau.”

“Like what?”

Gunn cuts a guarded gaze back to Holden. “Nothing I should say within the walls of a church, Father.”

Holden quietly considers the insinuation, wanting to query further but unable to without betraying unnatural curiosity over a woman he shouldn’t even be acquainted with. 

Gunn clears his throat, and rises to his feet. “I didn’t come here just to check up on you. I have a proposition. An invitation, really.”

“What is it?”

“A trip. To Laurel Park.”

“Where is that?”

“Maryland. It’s a horse racing track only forty-five minutes from my home in Arlington, and they have some of the most beautiful ponies you’ll ever lay eyes on.”

“You want me to go to a horse race with you?”

“Think of it as a business trip. I have some other folks coming.” 

“I see. So, I’m your character witness.”

Gunn smiles, thinly, and pats Holden on the shoulder. “Something like that. I’ll call you with the details, but the trip is in a week. We’ll be gone for a few days. Back in time for Sunday service, of course.”

Holden conjures his own amicable smile. “Sounds lovely.”

“It will be as long as you prove yourself to be the asset I believe you are.” Gunn says, his tone dismissive as he turns to leave. 

“Haven’t I proven myself already?”

“By snitching on your friend’s drinking problem which was never really a secret to begin with?” Gunn asks, his quiet chuckle echoing toward the ceiling. “I’m feeding you drugs, Father. You’ll have to do far better than that.”

Holden frowns at the floor, his sweaty fists balled at his sides. 

“Speaking of the- um … the-”

Gunn stops, turning to regard him with merriment. “The drugs?”

“Ah, yes.” Holden says, keeping his gaze on the stone tiling beneath his feet. “How much notice should I give you before I near the end of my supply? To, um … you know, give you a proper amount of time to procure-”

“You’ve already taken most of the pills?”

“No, not in such a short amount of time. I’d just hate to have to go without.”

Gunn’s stare treads heavily across Holden’s diminutive posture of shame, an act he doesn’t have to reach very far down into his gut for. 

“I have a small supply on hand.” Gunn says, finally. “But as I mentioned, it’s a foreign import. The situation with customs can be delicate. Do not assume what I’m giving you is guaranteed.”

“Of course not. I appreciate your generosity.”

“Good. I would hate to see a reputable man of God such as yourself turn into a drugged lowlife begging at my feet.”

Holden holds his breath without realizing he’s doing so until Gunn departs the chapel. Once the door slams shut behind him, he sinks down into the first pew with a hand pressed over his eyes. Gunn’s words ring in his mind, a statement he’s certain is in direct conflict with the man’s true interests. He would love to see a man of God at his feet. 

Gathering himself, Holden extinguishes the prayer candles, and goes back into the parsonage to use his telephone. He gets through to the BOI fraud department in minutes, and is relieved that Bill is at his desk. 

“Tench.” He answers, briskly. 

Holden clutches the receiver to his ear as he leans his forehead against the wall. “Hi. It’s me … Holden.”

“Hey, what’s going on?” Bill asks, his tone instantly softening. 

“I just spoke to Gunn. I think you, Wendy, and I need to meet again.”

“Did something happen? Did he threaten you?”

“No.” 

Bill mutters a disgruntled sound. “You sure?”

“Bill, I’m fine. Can we meet?”

“Yeah. I was going to bring it up to you anyway. Wendy got a meeting with a Customs agent. I’d like for you to be a part of that conversation.”

“All right. When?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay.”

Silence and intermingled tension swarm in with the static across the phone line. The strictly professional details of the investigation do little to smother the memory of frantic need, the insistent claw of incessant desire that Bill’s voice triggers down his spine. If Holden closes his eyes and listens to Bill’s raspy breathing reaching through the receiver, he can almost bring up the recollection of his lips with it. 

Bill is the first to break the cautious silence. “Holden …”

“Yes?”

“I’ll tell Wendy I’m picking you up, but that I have some other errands in town - that we’ll be a little late.”

“Bill …” Holden begins, massaging his fingertips across his forehead. 

“We’ll need the privacy.” Bill adds, ignoring the tenuous warning in Holden’s tone. “For all the things I’ve been thinking about - that I know  _ you’ve  _ been thinking about ...”

Holden feels the thrill of heat down his whole body, but most especially in his burning cheeks despite being sequestered in the parsonage with nobody but God to hear these filthy whispers grating across the phone and directly across his nerves.

“We shouldn’t-” He begins, already choking on the objection. 

“I have to go. I’m really busy right now.” Bill mutters, keeping his voice conspiratorially low. “You can fight with me about it tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t want to fight with you.”

“Then just say yes.”

Holden presses his eyes shut, wanting to curse aloud. 

Bill grunts a bemused chuckle. “Yeah, okay. See you tomorrow.”

“See you.” Holden murmurs, weakly. 

He sets the telephone down, and turns around to lean against the wall. His gaze wanders around the kitchen, pausing on the olive oil on the counter. His stomach seizes as if branded by hot iron. A responding twitch in his trousers makes his teeth grind, his head thump back against the wall with a low uttered groan. 

He would light a few more candles if he thought it would do any good. As it is, he doesn’t go back into the St. Stephen’s sanctuary again for the rest of the day. 

^^^

Bill wakes before the sun has risen, and finds himself unable to go back to sleep with anticipation curdling warmly in his belly. 

Nancy is asleep beside him, stirring gently at his tossing. Her presence barely adulterates his desire with recurrent guilt, a sensation knotted in the pit of his stomach that he’s grown accustomed to. 

After that morning with Holden, he’d come home and apologized. Groveled, really. Made promises he’s not sure he could keep.  _ I’m done drinking. I won’t do it again. I promise, I promise.  _ He wasn’t sure at which point he was apologizing for the liquor or his infidelity, but the difference hardly matters. She deserves better, far better than him. 

Suppressing a sigh, he crawls carefully out of bed and tucks the blankets over her shoulder. She sighs in her sleep, quickly sinking back down into the sheets and her dreams. Slipping out of the room, he showers, eats a quick breakfast, and leaves the house just as sunrise is warming the sky with resplendent bands of pink and orange. 

At St. Stephen’s, the churchyard is quiet and still. A gauzy frost lingers on the grass, catching rays of sunlight in a twinkling reflection. The stained-glass windows lining the front of the church are dark from the inside, but he can see a light through the parsonage window. 

Bill’s pulse thunders. He’d spent the last week turning over that afternoon in his head, wondering at Holden’s reactions. He had avoided Bill at Sunday Mass, but hadn’t put up much of a fight to Bill’s suggestions over the telephone yesterday. Perhaps the priest’s corruption is at last complete. 

Bill steps out into the crisp, autumnal chill, and strides confidently to the door of the parsonage. Rapping his knuckles against the door, he waits impatiently until the knob turns. 

Holden stays close to the edge of the door as he peeks out. His eyes are sleepless, foggy blue. 

“Can I come in?” Bill asks. 

Holden licks his lips, and opens the door wider. 

Bill enters the parsonage, and shrugs out of his coat. As he hangs the coat and his hat on the hook beside Holden’s cassock, Holden eases the door shut behind them, and plasters himself against it. He’s watching Bill intently, unusually quiet. 

Closing the brief space between them, Bill studies his pale cheeks and quivering lips. Their chests almost brush, and Holden closes his eyes, mouth pursing against a tremble. His nostrils flare with a deep breath as Bill reaches up to stroke his cheekbone with his thumb. 

“Bill …” he murmurs, his voice crackling thinly from his throat. 

“Hmm?” Bill mutters, leaning in to impart a slow series of kisses against his cheek that lead toward the niche below his jaw. 

Holden’s head tilts back, a little lamb to the slaughter. 

Bill takes the proffered skin, stamping his mouth into the pulsing jugular and inhaling the sweet scent of his neck. 

“Oh, I …” Holden whispers, hands clutching anxiously at Bill’s chest. “I haven’t slept. I can’t eat, or … or pray-”

Bill delves his fingers into the hair at Holden’s nape, and drags him closer as his kisses turn open-mouthed and hot, tasting his throat, the shell of his ear, his quivering jawline. Holden shudders against him, twisting at Bill’s embrace with conflicting bouts of resistance and submission. 

When Bill pulls back, Holden stares up at him with wide, glistening eyes that squint in and out of focus between Bill’s mouth and eyes. 

“You don’t know …” Holden whispers, raggedly, his trembling fingers reaching up to touch Bill’s lips, “... how you’re torturing me.”

Bill kisses him before anymore vexed admissions can emerge. Holden moans out choked delight, and his mouth capitulates. He’s clay in Bill’s arms, trembling spine arching and molding to Bill’s palm, lips sinking open and accepting the hungry stroke of his tongue. He slides his hands up Bill’s chest and around his neck, one pair of fingers sinking into Bill’s hair while the other stretches over his back. 

Bill grunts against a flinch of pain, mouth jolting away from Holden’s. 

“What?” Holden whispers, deliriously. 

“It’s still a little sore, that's all.”

Holden blinks as if he’d somehow forgotten the beating that occurred a little under a week ago, but a frisson of regret is quick to replace the realization. 

“It’s okay.” Bill urges, eager to move past Holden’s machinations. “Don’t worry about it.”

His mouth goes in for another kiss, but Holden twists his chin away. He breaks out of Bill’s embrace with both hands pressed to his chest. 

“I want to see it.” He says, his tone and expression abruptly calm. 

Bill frowns. “Why?” 

“Take your shirt off.”

Bill takes a step back, leveling his gaze with Holden’s increasingly defiant one. It always amazes him how Holden can shift from pliant to stern in a matter of seconds; and how he always obeys without question, as if he’d never had a choice. 

Unbuttoning his shirt, Bill tosses the garment onto the couch, and pulls his undershirt off over his head. 

“Turn around.” Holden says, drawing in an uneasy breath. 

Bill swivels slowly, keeping his gaze focused on the coarse carpet fibers. He can almost feel the dissecting weight of Holden’s eyes on him, surveying and cataloguing the lingering welts and bruises left behind by the whip. 

“Does it hurt much?” Holden whispers, fingertips feathering against his spine. 

Bill presses his eyes shut. Every nerve-ending stands at attention to Holden’s gentle caress, skin prickling achingly with goosebumps. The caress incites a dull ache, more of a nuisance rather than the agony he’d endured for the first few days after the whipping. 

“Not anymore.” Bill chokes out. 

Holden’s fingers trace his back, the deepest lashes. His breath gusts against the right shoulder blade just before his mouth brands a slow, warm kiss to the healing skin. 

“Is that why you wanted to see it?” Bill asks, casting a glance over his shoulder to see Holden’s eyes pressed shut, mouth moving in a gradual line across his back. “To know I’m suffering just as much as you?”

Holden’s eyes open, but he doesn’t speak, only holds Bill’s gaze, as he reaches around Bill’s side to stretch his palm over the quivering terrain of Bill’s stomach. 

Bill stiffens, a choked hiss rising in the back of his throat. Holden’s soft, warm palm moves down his belly, past the buckle of his belt to cradle his groin where he’s beginning to swell and pulse. 

“Jesus.” Bill mutters, urging his hips into the languid touch. 

Holden’s mouth smears intent, humid kisses against his back, leaving his hand on Bill’s cock almost as afterthought. 

Bill is all at once assaulted by the ache his mouth incites against his tender back, and the taut thrum of need in his groin that grows at a gradual, insufficient pace. He bites back a groan, floundering between submission and aggression before the repressed need of the last week wins out. 

Turning around, he catches Holden by the jaw, and pulls him into a fervent kiss. His other hand clutches at Holden’s wrist, forcing his hand between them and back over his aching cock. 

Holden lifts his chin and opens his mouth. A little whimper emerges against Bill’s stroking tongue as he rubs at Bill’s cock which is now burgeoning against the confines of his trousers. Bill’s teeth bump hungrily, impatiently against his lower lip, and he begins to tug on the buttons and zipper. 

Bill severs the kiss to pant feverishly against Holden’s mouth. Their foreheads are locked together as Holden gets his trousers open and his underwear pushed away from his hard cock. The garments crumple from his hips, leaving his erection jutting into Holden’s palm. 

“Fuck …” Bill whispers, clutching at Holden’s cheek. “I want your mouth on me.”

Holden’s mouth slips open, a tiny, shocked gasp. 

Bill wants nothing more than to defile those lips, his pure tongue which had once spoken only the Word of God; now it’s going to taste him, suck him down in filthy devotion, moan praises of a different sort while gagged with hard, leaking flesh. 

Without further urging, Holden sinks down to his knees. His collar is white against his flushed crimson throat. Bill eyes the vestment but leaves it, lost in the erotic sacrilege of a priest genuflect before him, that same throat adorned by God’s possession of him about to be possessed by something else entirely. 

Carding his fingers through Holden’s hair, Bill guides his head back, and rubs the head of his cock up against those damp, pink lips. 

Holden’s breath staggers against him as he awkwardly opens his mouth and attempts to get it over the thick tip. 

Bill holds him back with a firm grip on his hair. He laves the swollen rim of his cockhead along Holden’s damp lower lip, working it compliant and open until his tender skin grazes against teeth. Their gazes meet, and Holden blinks up at him, all innocent and purely driven snow if Bill hadn’t known better. He pushes his cock into the wide open, eager recesses of Holden’s slick, plush mouth. 

Holden moans a choked sound, and squeezes his eyes shut against the sudden violation. He swallows convulsively around Bill’s cock until the responsive gush of saliva comes up from the back of his throat, easing the second and third entrances. 

“Fuck-” Bill mutters, bracing himself against the hot wave of pleasure that crests in his belly. 

Holden’s mouth is warmer and wetter than it has any right to be, a velvet, slick suction taking Bill’s cock with surprisingly skilled exuberance. He curls his fingers around the root of Bill’s cock to guide the pace, twisting his wrist in rhythm with the wet glide of his mouth. He peels his mouth back to the tip where he oscillates his tongue around the smarting head, finding tender, bundled nerves and the highly sensitive cleft where Bill can feel himself straining with wanton juices.

“Oh God, Holden-” Bill whispers, peeking down at Holden’s bobbing, cherry-pink mouth administering blinding pleasure on his cock.

His knees feel weak, about to go from under him. He shuffles to the side, keeping Holden’s mouth on him, until he can sink down to the couch cushions. Holden crawls forward, grunting around a mouthful of cock at the prospect of this act being interrupted. He inserts himself between Bill’s opening thighs, and asserts his mouth more passionately now that Bill is under him, laid out, and compliant. 

Bill slips his eyes open, and moans aloud when he sees Holden’s mouth bobbing over his cock. The flashes of the shaft he sees are glistening with an overload of saliva and pulsing pink with engorged veins. His groin tingles and cramps, the first signs that he isn’t going to make it much longer with Holden’s mouth performing so attentively. 

“Mm, that’s good-” He whispers, stroking his fingers through Holden’s hair. 

Holden’s eyelids lift to cast Bill a sultry gaze. Moisture leaks at the corners as he works his mouth harder and further down on Bill’s cock, gagging quietly but not retreating. 

Bill’s eyes roll back, all but seeing the stars of hot pleasure coursing through him. He can feel the head of his cock bumping up at the back of Holden’s throat with every thrust, almost all of him tunneling down into Holden’s mouth save for the bottom portion that Holden has wrapped up in an unrelenting fist. 

“That’s it, that’s it …” Bill pants, raspily, his back arching and stiffening against swelling tingles. “Oh, Holden … God, I’m-”

Holden’s mouth works him deliberately, giving Bill no chance to resist or delay the orgasm. He seizes up against the lush clamp of Holden’s lips. Pleasure sparks white-hot, races like fire along a string of dynamite towards its explosive finish; then he’s draining across Holden’s tongue, all his repressed need of the last week gushing in three tremendous bursts that are followed by an aching, staggered stream that he can feel vacating his body under the duress of spasming muscles. 

Once it fades, Bill slips his eyes open to see Holden leaning back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His lips are swollen and raw, his eyes round with shock. With himself? Or just the taste of male orgasm in his mouth?

Bill shifts up against the cushions, and scrapes a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Holden …”

Holden’s eyes meet Bill’s contentiously. 

Bill cradles his cheek, and draws Holden into a brief kiss which Holden resists. 

“What?” Bill mutters, savoring the taste of release on Holden’s trembling mouth. 

“Those two names shouldn’t be in the same sentence together.” Holden complains, softly. 

Bill chuckles, and reaches down to unfasten Holden’s trousers. “Sorry. You want to discipline me again?”

Holden chokes on a moan as Bill’s hand slips under his trousers to stroke him through his underwear. 

“No …” He whispers, clutching at Bill’s thighs. “Not right now.”

Bill kisses him again, and pulls him up onto the couch. Holden lies back against the pillows with little resistance, but when Bill begins to strip his trousers down from his hips, he digs his nails into Bill’s knuckles. 

“Wait.”

“What?” Bill asks, shooting him a frown. 

Holden tugs his underwear away from his swollen cock, and gestures Bill closer. “You can do it like this.”

“Come on, Holden.” Bill says, pulling on the trousers. “I want to see you. All of you.”

Holden frowns, and turns his head away. His teeth blanch the blood from his lower lip as Bill slowly divests him of the trousers. The fabric slides from his pale legs to reveal the two-inch wide ring of barbed metal encircling his left thigh. The cilice is tied in place with a black cord knotted tightly enough to keep the sharp teeth biting persistently into tender flesh. 

Bill stops, his heart churning with sick and fascinated surges. He’s well aware of this kind of device, but he’s never seen one in person, let alone attached to soft skin. It’s both horrifying and intriguing. 

Holden squirms against the cushions. His cheeks are crimson, his eyes squeezed shut against Bill’s gradual perusal of the torture device. 

“Can I take it off?” Bill asks, creeping hesitant fingers along Holden’s thigh. 

Holden shakes his head, vehemently. “No, it’s there for a reason.”

“Just while I-”

“ _ No. _ ” Holden says, sharply, eyes flashing open to stare Bill down decisively. 

Bill softens the approach of his hand, nudging Holden’s thighs open wider rather than attempting to discard the cilice. He moves his palm past the taut metal to where the straining tendon at the join of his hip presses to pale skin. His cock twitches against his belly, and Bill passes it too. 

Holden’s frown deepens as Bill nudges the hem of his shirt up, and leans forward to kiss his trembling belly. 

“Bill, please-” He whispers, pressing his eyes shut. 

“Hmm?”

“Can you … hurry?” Holden says, shifting uncomfortably beneath him. “I-I … shouldn’t enjoy this so much-”

“Shush.” Bill murmurs, continuing his slow scattering of kisses over Holden’s silky soft skin. “If I’m sucking your cock, you’re going to enjoy it.”

Holden bites back a groan, and presses both hands to his face. 

Bill nuzzles down into the dark nest of his pubic hair and the swollen, tender testicles. Holden smells dense and heady, a mix of vanilla soap and natural bodily musk like an intoxicating ether. He mouths his way up the shaft, monitoring the growing pulse and the thickening curve that he’s becoming familiar with. When he reaches the tip, Holden is already leaking with predisposed pleasure; he must be aching, Bill thinks, caught between arousal and the steady, biting pain of the cilice. 

Determined to overwhelm that secondary sensation, Bill takes Holden’s cock in his mouth, and lathers him in saliva with a few lavish bobs of his head. 

“Ohh-” Holden whimpers, his hips jolting up against the sensation.

His hands flutter helplessly at the crown of Bill’s hair, resistant to latch on right away but giving in all the same. As Bill delves into a steady rhythm, the nails sink down against his scalp, fingers bunching, gathering him close in one second and pushing him away the next. 

Bill ignores the conflicted grabbing as it isn’t enough to deter the pace of his lips stretching wetly down the length of Holden’s hard cock. He sets himself to the task with unerring focus, breathing steadily through his nose while his mouth stays persistent and slick around the swelling flesh, and his right hand curls around the root to keep Holden close. 

Holden’s whimpers dwindle into choked cries as the pleasuring stretches on, offering him no reprieve in the unfolding seconds before orgasm. He writhes and stiffens beneath Bill’s mouth, fingers knotting in Bill’s hair with flagging resistance. 

“Bill … oh, Bill-” His voice breaks, and Bill peeks up at him to see Holden’s eyes raised toward the ceiling, narrow tears leaking from the pinched corners. 

Startled by the revelation, Bill begins to pull back, but Holden pulls him back down again. 

“Don’t stop.” He whispers despite the conflict running in wet rivulets down his temples and into his hairline. “Oh, God, Bill, don’t-”

Applying his mouth more firmly to Holden’s cock, Bill tastes the first salty tang of arousal at the back of his throat. He swallows it down and keeps sucking, listening intently to Holden’s tearful sniffles melding into choked gasps of bliss. 

With a muted groan, Holden seizes against him, and comes into Bill’s mouth. His body shudders in forcibly subdued trembles of anguished pleasure. He cups a hand over his mouth, silencing his own sounds of orgasm while keeping the other fist rooted in Bill’s hair. He doesn’t let go until his cock is entirely expired, flesh going suddenly limp against Bill’s tongue. 

Bill pulls back, swallowing down the lingering release in his mouth. His tongue is coated with the intense, sharp flavor, a taste he’s certain won’t be leaving him for a better part of the day. 

Holden hastily wipes at the tears glistening at the corners of his eyes, and sits up to grab at his trousers. 

Bill stops him with a hand on his knee. 

“You gonna wear that all day?” Bill asks, nodding at the cilice. 

Holden refuses to meet his gaze. “I should.” 

“Well, I think you’ve had enough.” 

Much to his surprise, Holden doesn’t resist as Bill loosens the knot of the black cord, and extracts the barbs carefully from his thigh. He casts the device aside on the coffee table, and evaluates the irritated, red pattern left behind on the pale canvas of Holden’s thigh. 

“I remember the first time I came to confession.” Bill says, “You told me that sometimes we beat ourselves up enough on the inside that one Our Father does the trick.”

Holden’s mouth purses against a faint smile despite his wet eyes. 

“Why can’t you give yourself the same kind of mercy?” Bill murmurs, leaning down to plant a soft kiss over the spot where the cilice had resided. “I’m starting to think you enjoy it, Holden - the suffering.”

Holden shudders, extending a tremulous hand to the back of Bill’s head. “Didn’t you?”

“We both know it isn’t the same. What you did to me- … there was nothing noble about it. You ...” Bill says, peeking back up at him, “... you would love to die a martyr, wouldn’t you?”

Holden glances away, his jaw rippling with defiance. “You have no idea the things I’ve done. I don’t deserve this, Bill - enjoying you touching me.”

“Then tell me. Tell me every terrible thing you’ve done. If you expect it to scare me off, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Holden looks back down at him. His lower lip trembles. 

“I’m just as bad as you.” Bill adds, “Probably worse.”

“Then neither of us deserve it.”

Bill scowls as Holden brushes his hands away, and rises to his feet. He pulls his trousers back up, tucking himself away and fastening his clothes stiffly. 

“When is the meeting?” Holden asks. “I don’t want to be late.”

Bill checks his watch. “An hour.”

“Good. Let’s go.” 

Bill redresses while Holden retreats to the bathroom. He can hear him brushing his teeth, scrubbing away lingering release. 

Curling his tongue over his teeth and palate, he tastes the mix of saliva and orgasm in his own mouth, and knows Holden is right. Both of them have broken their vows, but for the first time in a long while, the tormented voice of his conscience doesn’t spark the urge to drown himself in drink; he wants to be awake, stone cold sober, for however long they have together. 

^^^

The drive into D.C. is long and quiet. 

Bill smokes two cigarettes with the window half-way down, allowing the warming fall breeze into the stifled confines of the car. His fist is white-knuckled around the wheel as his thoughts turn, revisiting Holden’s plaintive arguments and self-deprecation. 

It strikes him in the gut that both times they’ve been together Holden has resisted undressing completely.  _ If the trousers hid the cilice, what other mutilations lie underneath the ubiquitous long-sleeved shirts? _

He glances over at Holden in the passenger’s seat, but Holden is staring out the window. His hand is set loosely around his rosary. The tiny, fervent stroke of his thumb against the edges of the crucifix signifies smothered anxiety. 

When they arrive at the Customs Service headquarters, Wendy is waiting for them by her car. She’s leaned against the sleek door of the coupe, smoking a cigarette, but she drops it to the curb and crushes it with her heel as they approach. 

“Father, thank you for coming.” She says, “Agent Nash was eager to meet our secret weapon.”

Holden conjures a faint smile. “You’re welcome, but I have a few developments of my own to discuss.” 

“Of course.” Wendy checks her watch. “Let’s go. I don’t want to keep him waiting.”

“So, you know this guy?” Bill asks as they climb the wide steps to the front of the building. 

“Through a friend.” Wendy replies, “A good friend. We can trust him.”

Bill holds the door open for Wendy and Holden, and follows them into the lobby of the headquarters. They share an elevator with three Customs officers who regard Wendy and the badge on her belt with thinly veiled curiosity.

A half-baked joke about a priest, a female BOI agent, and an alcoholic walking into a bar crosses Bill’s mind right before he wonders if the three of them have gone mad taking on an opponent like Gunn with little to no backup. What their investigation will look like after today is undetermined; the varying branches of the U.S. Federal government have never been known for their eagerness to cooperate with one another. He can only hope they can trust this Agent Nash as much as Wendy suggests. 

As the elevator doors slide open and the Customs officers vacate ahead of them, Bill glimpses a tall, thin man standing in the hallway. He’s dressed impeccably in a three-piece suit and forest green tie that’s adorned by a silver pin. His dark hair is oiled back against his skull while a neat mustache conceals a sharp cupid’s bow. 

“Agent Carr, I presume.” He says, as Wendy steps off the elevator first.

“Yes. Agent Nash.” She says, accepting his handshake. “Lovely to meet you in person. My associates, Agent Tench and Father Ford.”

Nash shakes each of their hands in turn, pausing when he meets Holden’s gaze. 

“I have to admit, I’ve never had an undercover priest in an investigation before.”

“I’ve never been undercover before.” Holden replies, graciously humble. 

“Don’t let him fool you. We wouldn’t have an investigation without him.” Bill says. 

Holden doesn’t look at him, but Bill can tell he’s blushing. 

“Well, why don’t we go to my office and discuss it?” Nash suggests. 

The three of them follow Nash down the hall to a door on the left that has his name stenciled on it. His official title is: Assistant Area Port Director. Wendy snagged a big fish into this investigation. 

“Let’s cut right to the chase.” Nash says once they’re all seated around his desk, “I’d really like to know how the three of you managed to not only internalize an investigation of this magnitude from the rest of the BOI, but also how you managed to make the leap from fraud to drug smuggling.”

Wendy smiles, and pulls out her briefcase. 

“May I?” She asks, motioning to Nash’s desk.

“Of course.” 

She lays the briefcase on the edge, and opens the lid. Inside are all of their notes on the investigation, photographs, and the paper bag containing the heroin pills. 

“This is everything thus far.” She says, “But in summation, I’ve suspected for quite a while, since I worked under him at the BOI, that Ted Gunn is no law-abiding citizen or upstanding elected official. We began with simple surveillance, watching the alcohol business and documenting as many people as we could who work for him; but it’s become clear that it isn’t just Prohibition laws he’s violated. It’s all in here.” 

Wendy retrieves the notebook which had started the whole affair, and slides it over to Nash. 

Nash thumbs through the pages, contemplatively stroking his mustache. 

The three of them wait in silence while he reads. Bill glances nervously at Wendy. 

“Boris Brudos.” Nash says, tapping his finger on the recently added name. “He’s been on my radar for some time, though for alcohol shipments. I wasn’t aware he was involved in the drug smuggling trade.”

“You know of him?” Bill echoes, “We just now became aware. He operates out of Alexandria from what we understand.” 

“Oh, yes. It won’t be a stretch for me to requisition surveillance on him.” 

“That’s wonderful. We don’t really have the manpower for constant surveilling.” Wendy says, 

“You’re right. This should be handled by a taskforce, not three people.” Nash says, leaning back in his chair and chuckling, “I suppose that’s the point of contention in bringing this to me, Agent Carr?” 

“I don’t want to see Gunn turned state’s witness.” Wendy admits, spreading her hands. “I want him in prison for what he’s done, not negotiating some cushy immunity agreement with a team of lawyers at his side.”

“Unfortunately, my agency always has larger fish to fry. The mob, if you’ve heard of them.”

“Of course. But the mob is the easy enemy, isn’t it? I’m talking about a man on the inside, a political aficionado with deep pockets, resources, contacts in the judiciary. Someone who could do real, internal damage. He has the money for bribes or whatever else you would like. In fact, he personally acquired the drugs in this bag to a priest.” Wendy says, rattling the paper bag of heroin tablets for emphasis. 

Nash considers what she’s saying with an intent gaze. “I do see your point. But it isn’t always up to me.” 

“You could hang onto this information for a little bit.” Bill says, “Confidential informants, and all that.” 

Nash nods, slowly. “Yes, one of you would be considered a civilian informant.” His gaze narrows on Holden. “How exactly did that come to be?” 

“Gunn took an interest. He thinks I can rehabilitate his town image before his bid for governor in two years,” Holden says. 

“I see. And what drove you, a man of the cloth, to insert yourself into something so dangerous?” 

“You’re right. I’m a pacifist.” Holden says, spreading his hands, “But that’s exactly why I couldn’t stand by any longer. He has the money and means to remove any obstacles in his way, and I’ve seen first-hand what he intends to do with any power he’s given. I felt it was my God-given duty to do something to protect not only the people of Papermill, but the whole of Virginia if he’s elected governor the way he wants.” 

“How noble.” Nash says, leaning forward to brace his elbows on the edge of the desk. 

“Father Ford has been vital to the investigation.” Wendy says, “You can trust his judgement.” 

Nash nods, his expression reserved yet skeptical. 

“Look,” Bill interjects, “We’re not exactly the poster children for the BOI, but our information is good. We have Gunn by the balls, he just doesn’t know it yet, and we just need a little more manpower to put the nail in the coffin. And I think I can speak for all of us when I say we’re not in it for the glory. If you want to take the collar at the end of the day, we’re fine with it.” 

Wendy nods her agreement. “If anything, it could hurt my reputation within the Bureau to take credit for arresting Gunn. My only intention here is seeing a score settled.” 

“I have to admit, you strike a hard bargain.” Nash says, allowing a smile to tug at his blade-thin lips. “What do you propose as next steps?” 

“Surveille Gunn.” Bill says, “He likes to keep his hands clean, but he must have some contact with his illicit business affairs. Follow this Boris Brudos. He’ll lead you back to the drugs. And look into his contacts in Arlington. It’s where he procured young girls for the former priest of our parish.” 

“Well,” Nash says, “Drugs, alcohol, bribes, prostitution. You’ve laid out quite the case.”

“If you want to help, we should get started.” Holden says, drawing all three of their gazes over to him. “I spoke to Gunn just the other day, and he’s invited me to Laurel Park in Maryland.”

“Horse racing?” Nash says, “You think he’s involved in gambling also?”

“It could be. He called it a business trip, and said he invited several other people.”

“That’s great.” Bill says, “All of his associates in one place. Could be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Nash nods his head, his eyes hardening. “We should make sure to bring plenty of ammo.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! I'm happy to be saying Sayonara to 2020 with everyone here and this story. As I've said before, this fandom has been a major part of my year and getting me through the ups and downs. Thanks to everyone who has commented so far and supported my writing. Every kind word means to the world to me ❤


	16. last living artifacts of a different world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days before Holden and Gunn's trip to Maryland, shifting allegiances and opponents become clearer.

Two days before Holden is meant to accompany Gunn to Laurel Park, a local man by the name of Tom Granger is injured in a gruesome accident at the mill. His hand and arm were mangled in the machinery before he was wrested free and rushed to the hospital in Alexandria. 

The family calls Holden that evening to ask him to be present for final rites should he pass on from his injuries. He goes willingly, looking forward to not only the escape from the increasingly suffocating confines of the parsonage that has reminders of Bill everywhere, but also the return to his priestly duties. Comforting the sick was what had drawn him to the priesthood. Offering a solace to those suffering in times of need. 

He takes a taxi to the hospital, bringing with him a change of clothes should he need to stay overnight and his bag containing all of the accoutrements for last rites and the Oil of the Sick. He tries not to think about the slippery glaze on hot skin when he packs it away. 

The family is relieved to see him. Tom had just come out of surgery where they attempted to save most of his arm. His hand had to be amputated in the process, too destroyed to be salvaged. He’s resting in a sedated sleep when Holden goes into the quiet hospital room. 

Sitting on the edge of the bed beside the injured man, Holden crosses himself and whispers a prayer. He takes the Oil of the Sick out of his bag, and smears Tom’s forehead. 

Midway into his invocation, Tom opens bleary eyes halfway to gaze up at him. 

“I’m not dead?”

“No, child.” 

Tears well in the corner of the man’s eyes. He reaches up with his remaining hand to clutch Holden’s palm to his cheek. 

“Oh, thank God, I’m alive. I’m alive.”

Holden allows the man to cling desperately to his hand. Sentimental tears sting his own eyes. He’s the first thing this man saw upon realizing he was still breathing, a sign of hope; for a moment, he forgets to loathe himself for all the mistakes he’s made in the past six months. 

Holden spends the night in Alexandria with Tom, making certain the man will pull through before leaving his side. In the morning, the doctors evaluate him and give a cautiously optimistic prognosis. The family effusively thanks Holden for staying before he extricates himself and catches a taxi back to Papermill. 

The next day, Holden is eating breakfast and thumbing through Psalms in preparation of the Mass when the telephone ringing interrupts the peaceful solitude of the kitchen. 

Holden gets up and grabs the receiver midway through it’s fourth ring. 

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Bill says, “It’s me.”

“What’s going on?” Holden asks. He can hear the telephones and chatter around Bill, indicating that he’s at work. 

“Nothing. I’m just thinking about tomorrow - Gunn whisking you off to Maryland.”

Holden scoffs a laugh, “I would hardly call it whisking.”

“What would you call it, then?”

“You shouldn’t worry. You and Wendy and Nash will be watching the whole time.”

“Well, I am worried.” Bill says, sternly, but his tone quickly softens as he hedges, “Do you think that maybe we could- … that I could see you before …?”

Holden chews his lower lip, and toys with the kinks in the phone cord. “Bill, I’ll be okay. My mind is clear. I know what I need to do.”

“It isn’t that. I know you’re smart and careful.”

“Then what is it?”

Bill huffs a sigh. “Come on, Holden. You miss confession? You want to make me say it?”

Holden purses his lips against the flush that crawls up his throat. “I do miss confession.”

Bill makes a disgruntled sound that makes it clear he doesn’t. “I can slip out of work a little early. We could meet over by the apple tree.”

“Not here?” 

“Well, not unless you want to.” 

Holden considers Bill’s suggestion. He’s been doing good the last week pushing Bill and their affair from his mind. The cilice helps. He hadn’t worn it to Alexandria, the longest he’s been without some form of exacting penance in a few weeks; he’s suddenly loath to return to it. 

Bill’s breath rustles restlessly across the line, not impatient but yearning. 

“I just want to see you, that’s all.” He admits, sounding quite defeated. 

Holden feels the sentiment in his bones. “So do I.”

“Do you?”

Holden grits his teeth, and presses his eyes shut. “Yes.” 

“Okay. Then meet me over there at four o’clock.” 

“Okay. Four o’clock.”

They hang up, and Holden stands in the kitchen silently cursing himself until the effort appears negligible. No matter how loud the voice of his conscience is, Bill’s voice always seems louder, gentler, and more hypnotic. He can’t say no, or pull himself away, his lack of self-worth be damned. 

That afternoon, he washes his face and combs his hair in front of the bathroom mirror before leaving for their rendezvous. Smoothing a palm over his slicked hair, he frowns at his plaintive reflection. 

_ You fool. You hypocritical weakling.  _ But no amount of berating can smother the giddy joy that bubbles up in his chest at the thought of seeing Bill in private again. 

He walks over to the field, a trek which takes him nothing short of twenty minutes. Bill’s car is pulled behind the soy field, away from the view of the road. Holden strides past it, and squints across the grassy knoll that opens up beyond the rows of corn. The apple tree leans crookedly against the breeze, and Bill is slouched below the fruit-laden branches with a tartan blanket unfurled beneath him. 

Climbing to his feet, Bill squashes his cigarette in the grass. His fedora lies discarded on the blanket, allowing the wind to toy with the salt-and-pepper strands that droop over his forehead. He runs a restless hand through it, and purses his lips against a smile on Holden’s approach. 

“I wasn’t sure you were actually going to come.” He says. 

“Why wouldn’t I?” 

“The last time we talked you seemed …” Bill says, gesturing haplessly between them. 

Holden lowers his chin in a cowed nod. “I suppose I’m not as smart and careful as you think I am.”

“No. I’m glad you’re not.” Bill says, feet shuffling through the wild grass until Holden can see their toes almost touching. 

He presses his eyes shut. His pulse rushes the way it always does when they’re this close, on the verge of touching. His stomach rises in his throat as if he’s dropping from a great height, about to be crushed. But it never hurts; the only pain Bill has ever inflicted upon him is secondary, the collateral damage perpetrated on his body by his own hand. 

Bill’s fingers tuck under his chin. Holden barely resists as his head is guided back, his mouth angled into position for a slow, warm kiss. He keeps his eyes shut as Bill’s mouth lingers, subdued and gentle, keeping the caress restrained and not involving his tongue. 

Holden pulls away, breathless. He realizes he hadn’t put the cilice back on before leaving the parsonage. There’s no pain to counteract the honeyed buzz of pleasure, or to balance the wildly tipping scales of his body yearning at Bill’s slightest touch. 

Bill strokes his cheek as Holden glances anxiously around the empty field. There’s no one in sight, but it feels different beneath the open sky. Liberating. Not that the parsonage walls could deflect God’s omniscient gaze, but out here, there’s nothing but the craggy branches of the apple tree to block His view, no gloaming of shame or whispers of judgmental saints. Holden wants to let Bill kiss him forever with the smell of autumn mingling with his aftershave, the breath of the breeze soothing the heat on his cheeks. 

Instead, he extricates himself from Bill’s languid embrace, and walks past him. 

“You okay?” Bill asks, turning to watch Holden wander beneath the tree. 

“Fine,” Holden says. 

He ignores Bill’s clinging gaze in favor of looking up through the leafy branches at the red apples nestled in burnished bunches among the foliage. He reaches up to break one free, and weighs it in his palm. 

“They’re sour.” Bill says. 

“Sour?” Holden echoes, glancing up from the shiny, red skin of the apple.

“Yeah, this tree is a relic. Pre-Prohibition, I mean. This used to be an orchard for cider, not eating, before we razed it to the ground.”

“We?”

“The BOI. It was our job to cut them all down or burn the orchards. I always thought it was a pity. A real waste.” 

“How did this one survive?”

“I don’t know. Sheer luck. Stubbornness. God’s will?”

“Like you.” Holden says as Bill draws closer.

Bill half smiles, and pulls out another cigarette. “Yeah. Like me.” 

Holden turns the apple around in his hand as Bill lights up and puffs on the cigarette. Smoke curls from his lips and is quickly snatched away by the breeze.

Easing down to the blanket, Bill crosses his arms over his knees and shakes his head. “I’m going to tell you something I haven’t told anyone else.” 

“What is it?” Holden asks, dropping down beside him with the apple clutched in his lap. 

They both gaze out at the distant, squatted skyline of the town, imposed upon by the garish smokestacks of the mill. Holden finds it hard to look anywhere else, much less directly at the willing vulnerability on Bill’s face. Those eyes have undermined him, driven him to ruin; even now, as he resists, it’s hard not to sink into the simple intimacy of sitting below the last living artifact of a different world. 

“When I came back from Pennsylvania in April, a possum got into the trap in the garden. It was sick - rabid, I think. I put it out of its misery and buried it out here.” Bill says, drawing Holden’s attention back to him. 

“Here?” Holden asks, glancing around the tree, but unable to see a burial spot. 

“Other side, facing west.” Bill says, jabbing his chin. “I had just spent six months on the road tracking down Richard Speck. It ended in a bloodbath, and I was exhausted. I was … out of my mind over David. I stood out here, and thought about-”

“About what?”

Bill glances apprehensively at him from beneath heavy eyelids. “I thought about how I was no better than a sick, crazed animal. I wished that I had died with David so I didn’t have to face it alone. It would have been a mercy killing if I had just had the guts to pull out my gun and shove it down my throat.” 

“Bill …” Holden whispers, hearing the shock ripple through his own voice. 

Bill frowns, avoiding his gaze for a moment, before looking up into Holden’s beseeching stare. His eyes are glassy with reminiscent pain. 

“When I told you that you made me want to live again, I meant it. That was no exaggeration.” Bill says, “And you’re right, maybe neither of us deserve an ounce of happiness - but I can’t split my life into good and bad anymore. I have to take what I can get or else it isn’t worth living.”

Holden tears his gaze away, and blinks against the distant image of Papermill going fuzzy. 

“Do you believe in God?” He asks, realizing his thumbnail is digging into the crisp flesh of the apple. “Did you ever?”

Bill scoffs, quietly. “I don’t know. You made me want to. Do you still believe?”

Holden swings a gaze back to him, horror climbing in his veins. He hasn’t let himself entertain such doubt. 

“I’m not trying to offend you by asking that, but-”

“Yes, of course I do.” 

Bill shakes his head, a grim smile tugging at his mouth. “Well, maybe I’m not the most devoted Catholic you’ll ever meet, but I did pay attention to every word you’ve said in Mass. I paid attention when you told me to study I John, and you know what’s funny?”

“Funny?”

“Yeah. Twisted, I mean. It says in that chapter ‘everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.’ I know one thing in this ugly, cruel world, Holden - I love you. Maybe not in the way you want or deserve, but I do. And if God thinks that love is wrong, then He’s lied to us in his own Word.”

Holden tries to speak, but Bill has already taken his cheek in palm and drawn him close. Their noses collide, gazes silently battling back and forth. Holden bunches his fist in the blanket, his mind racing. 

_ Every word in the Bible is true.  _ The phrase had been burned into his mind during seminary, so much so that he had never questioned it. Not until now. 

The apple slips out of his hand and rolls toward his feet as Bill kisses him, harder this time, an aching devotion igniting in the friction between their mouths. Holden pants into the heated exchange of lips as his head spins. 

Bill’s hand falls down to his thigh, feeling out from knee to hip but encountering nothing but soft skin underneath his trousers. He draws back, a breathless laugh scraping from his throat. 

“You’re not wearing it.” He murmurs. 

Holden shakes his head, throat thickening. “No, I … couldn’t.”

“Good.” Bill says, taking Holden by the chin once more and leaning him back against the blanket. “I don’t want this to hurt.”

Holden wiggles for a moment beneath the imposing weight of Bill’s hips sliding down against his own, his thighs pushing Holden’s legs apart into helpless, pinned spread eagle. Too soon his hands knotted up in Bill’s shirt lapse above his head, and he tilts his chin back to accept another kiss. 

Bill’s hand cradling his cheek slides down to check Holden’s pulse as their mouths join. Holden is breathless until the gentle weight of it retreats, and the fingers slip under his white collar. Bill casts aside the adornment as if it had offended him. 

Holden opens his eyes, moaning aloud toward the open sky as Bill’s mouth moves lower, kissing him where the slim, clerical leash had once resided. The skin singes, so unaccustomed to human touch, and he nearly cries once more, reduced to ancient impulses of contact and intimacy until he’s nothing more than a collection of raw nerve-endings, a neurological scramble of need. 

When Bill lifts his head, Holden clings to his neck. He wants to curse himself, Bill, but mostly God:  _ Why did you make me this way? Why did you make me to be touched and then imprison me from ever feeling it? Why does it feel so good?  _

Bill strokes vagrant moisture from the corner of his eye with a ready thumb. He leans his forehead against Holden’s, breathing shakily. “Whatever the price is, Holden, I’ll pay it.”

“Price?” Holden murmurs, delirious. 

“You want to correct me again? Whip me; cane me? Fine, I’ll do it.” Bill whispers, fervently, kissing Holden’s cheek, his tremulous lower lip, the bridge of his nose. “I’ll do whatever you want -  _ take  _ whatever you want me to take -”

“Bill, stop.” Holden bursts out, “Stop, please. Don’t say these things-”

“Why not?” Bill says, taking him by the cheek, squeezing hard. “What else is there for me?”

“Your wife, Brian, they-”

“They’re better off without me.”

Holden turns his head away, swallowing against a clot of tears. 

“After we’re done with Gunn, we could leave.” Bill says, his voice going low and husky. “We could go anywhere we want. Just away - away from here. Together. We could-”

“What?” Holden cries, shoving his hands into Bill’s chest. “No! Bill, think about what you’re saying.” 

Bill leans back on his heels as Holden scrambles upright. His eyes are misty, desperate, pleading. The apple lays between them at Holden’s feet, uneaten and rotting. 

“Do you hear yourself?” Holden demands, “You would leave your wife, your child? Your job? We’re two men. Where would we go together that we would not be persecuted and reviled?”

Bill lowers his head, and scrapes a trembling hand through his hair. “Somewhere. We’d find a place.” 

“You’ve lost your mind.”

Silence settles between them, dense and barbed as a thicket, and in it, the wail of approaching sirens. 

They both turn to see police cars blurring past the field, and a few moments later, several cars. They’re all headed toward town, in the direction of the mill. 

“What the hell?” Bill says. 

“What’s going on?” Holden asks, climbing to his feet. 

“I don’t know. Nothing good.” 

They both momentarily forget Bill’s spontaneous escape plan as they hastily gather up the blanket and Holden’s discarded collar. He slips it back in place while they stride across the field toward the road. A few more cars speed past, and they’re close enough now to see that the men inside are armed. 

“Shit.” Bill mutters, “Let’s go.” 

They get into Bill’s car, and he pulls out onto the road behind the racing entourage. He drives faster than Holden is comfortable with, but he can’t conjure an objection with his thoughts cleaving in two - half his brain still melted out on the tartan blanket beneath the sun, the other half paralyzed by fear of what they’ll find at the end of this short trip into town. He’s seen the tide of the people turn for the worse before, an experience he’d rather not repeat. 

The main street is unusually desolate in the afternoon. As they turn onto the road where the smokestacks stretch toward the sky and a few miles of chain-link fencing surround the grounds, Holden can see a mob gathered, but not at the Brudos Paper Mill. The crowd is down at the end of the street, trampling the yard of a massive, colonial style home. Holden recognizes the residence of Henry Brudos, aging patriarch of the Brudos family monopoly on this town. Some of the protestors are holding signs while others are clinging to their pistols and shotguns, still others waving vicious fists at the shuttered windows. A ring of overwhelmed sheriff’s deputies form a thin line of protection at the front porch, holding back the crowd from storming the front door. 

“What the hell is going on?” Bill mutters as he eases the car to a stop along the curb. He shuts off the engine, and pushes the door open. “Stay here.”

Ignoring the order, Holden gets out of the car and follows Bill across the street. As they draw closer, Holden’s stomach drops. One of the men holds a makeshift sign above his head:  _ JUSTICE FOR TOM GRANGER.  _

“What’s going on here?” Bill demands as he shoulders his way past the stragglers to the core of the angry mob. 

“Haven’t you heard?” One of the men pauses from shaking his fist at the rich man’s house to sneer at Bill. “Tom Granger is dead - and it’s all this bastard’s fault.” 

“Wait, he’s dead?” Holden says, grabbing the man’s arm to get his attention. 

“Who’s Tom Granger?” Bill asks. 

“We’ve been telling Henry Brudos for  _ years  _ that the mill is unsafe, his workers underpaid and overworked!” The man shouts above the din of the crowd. “We just want him to come out here and fucking acknowledge it!”

“Tom died?” Holden repeats, his chest sinking. 

“This morning.” The man says, yanking his arm free of Holden’s grip. “Now don’t tell me we should be peaceful about this, Father! That mill is slowly killing all of us!”

The dull roar of the crowd rises into a gleeful shout when someone picks up a rock and throws it through a window in the second story. 

“Get out here you miserable bastard! Show your fucking face!” Someone shouts at the jagged new opening in the window. 

“All right, that’s enough! Everyone calm the fuck down!” Jerry Brudos is shouting from the front porch steps, his face red with anger and exasperation. “I’ll haul every one of your asses downtown for trespassing and destruction of property! You need to disband immediately!”

“Come on,” Bill says, lowering his voice as he grabs Holden by the arm, “Let’s get out of here. Nothing good is going to come of this.” 

“We should do something.” 

“Looks to me like Jerry has it under control.”

“Does he?” Holden presses, glancing over his shoulder at the thinly spread sheriff’s deputies trying to placate the mob. 

Ignoring Holden’s query, Bill leads them back across the street. 

As they approach, a sleek, black Cadillac pulls up behind Bill’s sedan. The darkened rear window rolls down slowly to reveal Ted Gunn's permanent smirk. 

Holden extricates his arm from Bill’s grasp, and walks over to Gunn. 

“Are you here to do something?” Holden asks, sweeping a hand toward the house. “They’re about to crucify Henry Brudos.”

“You’re the pacifist, Father.” 

Holden frowns at him. “And you’re the mayor. You should do something, say something-”

“I don’t think so.” Gunn says, his gaze drifting past Holden’s righteous scowl to the mob shifting into a restless, dull drone at Sheriff Brudos’ threats. 

“What do you mean?”

“Father, it’s really in your best interest to trust that I have my affairs under control. And the affairs of this town.”

Holden takes a step closer to the window of the car, and braces his hand against the smooth steel of the roof. “You had something to do with this?”

Gunn tilts his head. “You consider me the villain of this story, don’t you? Well, I’m going to save this town now that Henry Brudos has nearly driven it into the ground with poor business practices and bad loans. I want you to remember that tomorrow when we’re in Maryland. You’re there to support me, and in turn, support the people of this town.”

“I can’t support this barbaric behavior.” 

“I told you that your bleeding heart was going to be a shortcoming. You should do something about that soon.” Gunn says. He shifts his gaze to Bill who is hovering by his car, waiting for Holden to finish the conversation with a cigarette pinched in the corner of his mouth. “Like your friend, Agent Tench. He had the good sense to walk away as soon as he saw what’s happening here. Your day to stand up and decry ‘barbaric behavior’ is coming. Just not today.”

Holden takes a step back from the car as Gunn raps on the door with his knuckles, signaling his driver to pull away. The Cadillac slips past him, and accelerates down the road and out of sight. The sound of the mob petering off to grumbled complaints hums below the roar of his blood in his ears. 

Bill takes a drag of his cigarette, and exhales heavily as Holden numbly shuffles back to his side. 

“There’s going to be another strike.” He observes, shaking his head grimly. “Great. Just what this town needs.”

Holden doesn’t answer. His palms are sweating. 

“What? What did Gunn say?” Bill asks, concerned. 

“He did this.” Holden whispers, “I don’t know how, but he did.”

“For what purpose?”

“I don’t think he and Henry Brudos are business partners. I think it’s just the opposite.”

Bill glances back over at the mansion with it’s tightly drawn curtains. “We always assumed they were because of Jerry’s relationship with Gunn, but Henry has always been a bit of a recluse so there’s really no proof of an alliance. You think he’s using this to put pressure on the old man?”

“He said I would find out tomorrow at Laurel Park.”

Bill scowls as he pitches his cigarette to the pavement, and grinds it under his heel. “Right. Tomorrow.” He nods for Holden to follow him. “Come on, let’s get you back.” 

Holden climbs into the passenger’s seat, and leans tightly against the door as Bill drives them back toward St. Stephen’s. The sun is starting to sink down toward the treeline, scattering light in reams of gold over the tops of storefronts and municipal buildings. He keeps thinking of Tom Granger clinging to his hand whispering “ _ I’m alive”  _ before succumbing to his injuries. The man had no idea Holden was involved with the person partially responsible for his death - that is, if Gunn somehow managed to orchestrate a factory accident. It’s beginning to seem as if nothing is beyond his reach. 

When they reach the church, Bill lets the car idle while he turns to put his arm across the back of the seat. He nudges Holden’s shoulder. 

“Hey, you okay?”

Holden bites his lower lip, and shakes his head. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Everything. An innocent man is dead because of Gunn. And I’m helping him.”

“For a good reason. We’re so close to nailing that son of a bitch, Holden. Don’t give up right now.” 

Holden meets Bill’s fervent stare with shimmering eyes. “I’m not. It’s too late to give up now. I’m involved.”

Bill slides closer on the bench seat, and draws Holden’s forehead to his own with a calloused but gentle hand on his cheek. 

“Listen to me. You’re gonna do great tomorrow. Gunn has no idea what’s about to hit him.”

Holden nods, drawing in a shaky breath that he exhales slowly. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Bill echoes, stroking Holden’s cheek reassuringly. 

Holden nods again. He opens his eyes carefully to glimpse Bill’s face in the growing dusk, the sharp edges of his cheekbones backlit by oversaturated sunset. His eyes are calm, ocean blue; for a moment, Holden fancies the jaunt into madness of them running away together, out of the chaos. 

Bill kisses him, sealing that thought away in his mind where it can grow in isolation. When he draws back, he gives Holden’s cheek a pat before sliding back behind the wheel. 

“Be careful tomorrow, all right?” He says, “Don’t do anything reckless or crazy.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I’m just saying. Wendy and I will be watching. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I know.”

“Okay. Good. Go get some rest.” 

Holden nods. “Thanks, Bill.”

He gets out of the car, and goes to the door of the parsonage. Bill doesn’t drive away until he’s unlocked the door and slipped inside. 

He eats a light supper, soup with biscuits, and drinks his tea. Afterwards, he tries to read from his Bible, but every word seems to taunt him with his own doubt and fears. He won’t be sleeping much tonight with the memory of Bill’s voice burned into his mind, the fateful question:  _ Do you still believe in God?  _ Holden wants to answer with a resounding yes. Still, the question remains:  _ Does God still believe in him?  _

^^^

Gunn’s suave black Cadillac picks Holden up from St. Stephen’s at nine o’clock in the morning. 

Holden had been awake since six, and tossed and turned for several hours prior. He’d been provided very few details about who would be attending the horse race with him and Gunn, or what exactly his role is meant to be; as such, his mind had gone every conceivable direction, offering him little reprieve until the morning sunlight began peeking past the curtains. 

Bill called at eight to make sure everything was okay. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Holden asked, trying to imbue his tone with confidence. 

Bill must have heard the slight tremor in his voice because he reiterated once again that he, Wendy, and Nash would be close by at all times.  _ I won’t let anything happen to you.  _

It is reassuring. Almost more reassuring than his fingers on his rosary or a prayer to God these days. 

Holden tries to put the situation with Bill out of his mind as he answers the knock and opens the door to Gunn’s driver, another colored man in the mayor’s employ. He’s dressed all in black with shiny, gold buttons down the front of his jacket. 

“I’ll take your bag, sir.” He says, nodding at the suitcase Holden had packed last night and left by the door. 

“Thank you.” Holden agrees. 

He follows the driver out to the Cadillac where the man holds the back door open for him, and deposits his suitcase in the trunk.

Gunn waits for him in the leather backseat, dressed in what Holden is sure he considers casual attire - a sky blue shirt with a rounded, white collar and French cuffs, suspenders with gold buckles. Not for the first time, Holden wonders if he’d even broken a sweat in the aftermath of Black Tuesday. It seems that his business ventures had survived the calamity with shocking tenacity. 

“Good morning, Father.” Gunn says, welcoming him into the vehicle with a smile. 

“Good morning.”

As the car leaves St. Stephen’s behind, Gunn studies him relentlessly. 

“Feeling nervous?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Hmm. I thought you looked a little peaked. Didn’t the heroin I’m providing you with help you sleep last night?”

“No. I decided not to take it. I wanted my mind to be clear.”

“Well, you’ll have plenty of time to rest. We’re headed to my home in Arlington. We’ll have a nice dinner, enjoy the food and cocktails and the company, and indulge in as many things as we like before Laurel Park.”

“We’re not going to Maryland directly?” Holden asks, his chest tightening with fresh trepidation. 

“No,” Gunn says, noting Holden’s rigidity with a bemused laugh. “Relax, Father. Yes, this is a business trip, but I prefer to mix my business with a little pleasure. You must. It’s how the palms are oiled, the purse strings loosened, the morals and inhibitions relaxed.”

“I see. I assume there’s going to be some important people at this dinner - people you’d like to make financial or political overtures to?”

“A few.”

“Can I know who they are?” Holden asks, meeting Gunn’s gaze directly again, “So I know who I’m supposed to be persuading?”

“There’s only one person attending this dinner that you need to worry about. Henry Brudos.”

“Henry Brudos?” Holden echoes, bewildered, “You mean the same Henry Brudos who you were ready to feed to the wolves yesterday?”

“The one and only. Don’t worry - he has no idea that the accident was no accident. All he knows is that I’ve been trying to purchase the mill from him for years now, and he’s losing leverage with every day that passes. He just needs a little nudge over the edge, Father. A little magnanimous encouragement from the hand of God.”

“You want me to convince him to sell to you?”

“The man is sick. Dying, really.” Gunn says, running a pensive fingertip across his chin, “He’s a stingy bastard, and his whole family hates him for it. His son, John, who oversees most of the mill’s daily operations is an idiot who will run the company into the ground the moment Henry is gone. On top of all of that, he was recently forced to fire his Vice President because it turned out the man was embezzling from their already slim profits. His empire isn’t what it used to be. If he doesn’t sell, he’s going to be bankrupt - especially if the workers go on strike again.” 

“You’ve left him no choice.” Holden whispers. 

“There you go again, casting me as Satan.” Gunn replies, shaking his head and uttering a sigh, “I’m saving that old bag of bones from himself. He should have had the sense to sell years ago before the situation became so dire, but now the single source of revenue in town is about to go under. Really, I’m saving Papermill. Isn’t that what you would want - what God would want?”

“A man died so you could save the mill.” 

“A sacrifice. So be it.” Gunn spreads his hands, his expression cold and devoid of remorse. “I’m certain you know the Bible better than I do, but I recall something about entire nations of people being slaughtered at God’s command so that the Hebrews could have their Promised Land. Your God has never shied away from bloodshed.”

Holden wishes he had a good rebuttal. He doesn’t. 

Instead, he looks out the window at the outskirts of Papermill growing progressively more destitute, the homes of colored folks barely distinguishable from the abandoned structures that had once housed a thriving community. In a blink, the cross-section of poverty is gone, and there’s nothing but endless fields shimmering beneath the morning sun, the road to Arlington cleanly paved ahead of them. Holden can’t shake the thought that he’s descended into the belly of the beast. 


	17. before our legacies consume us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trip to Maryland commences. Gunn's plans for Holden take on new expectations and faces.

Gunn’s home in Arlington is even more expansive than the one in Papermill. In the more modern, Neoclassical style, the jutting porch area surrounding the double front doors is supported by four massive, white columns that stand out against dark red brick. The roofline is flat except for an impressive white dome which glistens like an enucleated eye raised toward the heavens. The surrounding grounds are neatly tended gardens, tiered by sections of wide, stone trios of steps that lead down the slope of the front yard. Like an oasis carved out of the thick tree populace, the mansion lords over this strip of road just a few miles outside of Arlington while the pristine but smaller homes of the neighbors are sequestered into privacy by screens of white oak, pine, and maple trees bursting with the burnished colors of autumn. 

Holden casts a quick glance through the back window when they pull into the drive, and glimpses the tail car driving leisurely past. Much to Holden’s relief, neither Gunn nor the valet seemed to have noticed Nash’s carefully distant pursuit. He wishes he could get a message to them that they won’t be going to Maryland today, but he knows Bill and Wendy are no strangers to a long stake-out. They’ll adjust to the change of plans accordingly. 

Holden had already made the adjustment in his own mind, but when Gunn leads him through the front doors of the home to the white-washed interior populated by lavish fixtures of gold, velvet and silk, a sense of identity returns to him.  _ He knows how to do this - how to woo the rich, make them trust him just before he pulls the rug out from under their feet. Moreover, he must do this.  _

“What a lovely home.” He says, surveying the opulence with a curious gaze. 

“I built this place when I was thinking of leaving Papermill for good.” Gunn says, waving for Holden to follow him further into the house. 

While their luggage is carried away by the valet, Holden and Gunn go into a sitting room where a long row of open drapes expose the windows and a view of the gardens. The white fireplace looks to be for decor purposes only with it’s clean grate and perfectly arranged split logs. Above the mantle, a replica of a Picasso piece opposes the luxury and grandeur of the rest of the home. 

Holden studies it with his hands behind his back. “When was that?”

“1926. Right after I left the Bureau.”

“What made you decide to stay in Papermill?” He asks. 

Gunn sits down on the couch behind him with a heavy sigh. “It was purely pragmatic. I grew up there, and my father had grown a lot of connections for me that I still needed to advance into politics. It was the most obvious starting point. Competition is fierce in a place like here in Arlington.”

“You must be dying to get out.”

When Gunn doesn’t reply immediately, Holden glances over his shoulder. 

Gunn spreads his arms over the back of the sofa, and meets Holden’s probing gaze with steely resistance. 

“What do you think of this piece?” He asks, instead, motioning to the Picasso. “It was done in 1927 - Picasso’s first monochrome artwork. I love his colorful works, but the use of blacks and grays is truly stunning.”

“There is something compelling about it.” Holden says, squinting at the distorted faces peeking from the geometric and swooping shadows. “And by compelling, I mean horrifying.”

Gunn chuckles. “You think so?”

“Yes. It’s his view of a milliner's shop, right? A glimpse into a small, dark room where the workers spend their days hunched over their sewing machines with no chance of daylight …”

Gunn’s amusement fades into intrigue. “You recognize it?” 

“Picasso is fairly well-known. Rightly so.”

“I didn’t peg you as a man who knew anything about art.” Gunn says, “I assumed such fanciful things were barred from priests - aside from religious paintings, of course.” 

“Such gifts are granted to men like Picasso from God.”

Gunn tilts his head as he rises from the sofa. He joins Holden in front of the painting, but his eyes are fixed on Holden. 

“I’ll admit, I didn’t think of the workers’ plight when I purchased this painting; and that’s exactly why I need you at my side tonight.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You see the good and the ill in all people, Father.” Gunn slips his hand up Holden’s back to squeeze his shoulder. “You see the suffering, the self-immolation, the demons that haunt us. Henry Brudos has been my enemy for as long as I can recall. I couldn’t see those things in him if I tried. But you can, and I know you will find a way to use it to our advantage.”

Holden’s pulse flutters, but he doesn’t betray his nerves by shivering under Gunn’s heavy hand on his shoulder. He lifts his chin, and casts Gunn an affirming gaze. 

A few minutes later, a maid comes in to tell Gunn that lunch will be ready on the posterior veranda. He motions for Holden to follow him outside, and as they make their way through the house, Holden performs the same swift yet thorough perusal of the halls and doorways that he had at the house in Papermill. 

On the veranda, the banister opens up to wide, low-set stairs that lead down into the back gardens. Not far off, a pond glistens below the sun, reflecting back the yellows and oranges of the trees. 

“I would love to take a walk through your gardens.” Holden observes. 

“I’ll take you on a tour later, but there isn’t much to see this time of year.” 

“That’s all right. No tour necessary.” Holden remarks, leaning against the stone railing, “I like to walk alone. It helps me talk to God.”

Gunn doesn’t protest as he sits down at the table where a jug of sweet tea perspires in the afternoon warmth. He pours them each a glass, and waves for Holden to sit with him. 

Throughout lunch, Gunn keeps the conversation light. He doesn’t mention politics or who else might be attending the dinner later this evening though Holden attempts to angle in that direction a few times. He’s interested in Holden’s opinion about art beyond Picasso. Holden does his best to casually obfuscate, hoping that Gunn isn’t reading his resistance to honesty in the same way that Gunn is avoiding discussion about the dinner guests. 

When they’re done eating, he waves the maid over and orders her to show Holden to the room he’ll be occupying tonight. 

“Take your time. Freshen up.” Gunn suggests, slipping his pocket watch from his trousers to check the time. “We have three hours until guests begin arriving.”

Holden follows the maid up a sprawling staircase to the second level. He eyes the closed doors that line the hall until they reach a room at the end of the corridor. 

The maid lets him into the room, but hovers by the door while he surveys the plush accommodations. 

“Is there anything you require, Father?” She asks. 

“No, thank you.”

“Mr. Gunn said that if you need anything, all you have to do is ask.”

“That’s very gracious of him, but I’m fine. Thank you.”

She leaves him alone in the generous guest bedroom with its own adjoining bathroom and queen sized bed furnished with a mound of decorative pillows and statuesque, ornate frame.

It’s been many years since he was surrounded by these kinds of luxuries, but he isn’t intimidated by it. He’d had his fill of vapid opulence and unnecessary excess. He’d left it behind for a reason, one that still informs him now in this investigation. Money makes people reckless and selfish, power even more so. 

He walks around the room, opening the drawers and cabinets, not truly expecting to find anything but paranoid nonetheless. Gunn is happily using him for his purposes, but that doesn’t mean they trust one another. If some recording device had been hidden behind the paneling, he wouldn’t have been shocked.

But there isn’t, at least none that he can uncover. He has three hours alone to explore the second level as much as he can without drawing attention. 

He waits half an hour to convince himself that the maid has vacated this wing of the house before slipping out of the bedroom in his socks. He pads down the carpeted hall, easing each door open in turn. He’s greeted by bedrooms, sitting rooms, a library, and at last, what appears to be Gunn’s office. 

Pressing the door shut behind him, Holden takes account of the spacious room more darkly decorated than the rest of the home in rich wood furnishings and leather chairs. A bookcase along one wall houses thick volumes, photographs, and other trinkets. 

He goes to the desk first, and finds each drawer locked tight. Of course. Gunn wouldn’t make snooping so easy. 

Undeterred, Holden walks along the bookshelf, running his fingertips over the spines and wondering which one might hold the secrets to Gunn’s kingdom. He recognizes most of the classic fictional titles and philosophical and psychiatric volumes stacked up beside one another. Gunn even has an early edition Bible tucked against the bookend fashioned into the bust of a horse. He slides it off the shelf, and flips through the fragile pages. The waxy paper slips open to I John, and Holden scowls at the text. 

_ Focus.  _ He reminds himself, putting the Bible back on the shelf - and thoughts of Bill along with it, if he can. 

Turning on his heel, he scans the office with a critical gaze. Some of Gunn’s secrets must be stored in here, but he’s a careful and patient man. The unassuming Edward Hopper landscape oil painting on the wall across from him doesn’t fit with the Picasso downstairs. It’s meant to be appreciated, but mostly to blend into the rest of the room. 

Holden goes over to it, and runs his fingers along the edge of the frame. It doesn’t move, as if it’s bolted in place. Pressing his cheek to the wall, he tries to look behind the painting, but there’s not even a millimeter of space separating the frame from the paneling. 

Not so unassuming after all. 

He’s seen these kinds of false panels before, usually concealing a safe where money or scandalous documents are stored. Even if he could somehow open the front of the painting, he would never be able to discover what’s behind it as it’s most definitely sealed behind a combination lock. 

Holden’s head swivels when a distant pair of voices down the hallway jars his attention from the painting. Pulse spiking, he rushes across the room on the balls of his feet to crack the door open. Peering down the hall, he glimpses two people at the top of the staircase - a man dressed in white with his back turned, and an elderly man crouched over the banister, coughing in his handkerchief. 

Holden slips out of the office before either of them can look up, but in his attempt to scurry back down to his assigned guest bedroom, a raspy voice stops him. 

“Excuse me, young man. Who are you?”

Holden grinds his teeth before telling himself to relax and rearranging a calm expression on his face. He turns around as the taller man in the white, who Holden now guesses is an aide or caregiver, assists the older man in climbing up the last step. 

Though the elderly man is bowed forward and his face pinched into a permanent grimace, Holden quickly notices the resemblance to Sheriff Brudos. 

“My name is Father Ford.” Holden says, “I’m a guest of Mayor Gunn as I assume you are also, Mr. …?”

“Brudos.” Henry says, waving aside the aide’s doting grasp on his elbow with an irritated slap. “Henry Brudos. Ted told me I’d have this wing of the house to myself.”

“I apologize. We arrived earlier this morning, and the maid didn’t mention it when she showed me to my room.”

“We?” Brudos echoes.

“Mayor Gunn and I.”

Brudos’ watery, gray eyes narrow with suspicion. “Ted’s friends with a priest? This is a day I thought I’d never see.”

“I’ve been counseling him.”

Brudos sizes Holden up from a distance before waving an impatient hand. “Come here. I can’t see you all the way down there.”

Holden draws in a steadying breath, and shuffles down the hallway.

As he draws closer, the scowl on Brudos’ bushy, gray eyebrows deepens. 

“You’re not wearing any shoes, Father.” He observes. 

“No, I … I left them in my room.” Holden says, glancing down at his black socks curling against the white carpeting. 

“Go out in stocking feet a lot, do you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

Brudos suddenly begins to chuckle, but it doesn’t sound pleasant with the wet crackle emanating from his lungs. “All right, fine. If it guarantees you won’t disrupt my sleep tonight coming and going, then I won’t question the nature of your footwear, Father Ford.”

“I wouldn’t dream of disrupting your sleep, Mr. Brudos.”

Brudos purses his lips against a cough that Holden has already identified as emphysema. It sounds advanced. Gunn hadn’t lied about the man’s impending demise.

“Good.” He says, after a minute of subdued rasping. “I don’t sleep much as it is, and I don’t go out. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t absolutely necessary, but that’s what you get when you involve yourself with Ted Gunn. He dictates all the fucking rules.”

“He can be stubborn, yes.”

“Stubborn? The man is an unrepentant bastard who manipulates everyone for his own gain. How you intend to reform him, I haven’t the slightest idea.” Brudos replies, shuffling past Holden at an unsteady gait. 

“Everyone is worthy - and capable - of redemption in my opinion.”

“Everyone?” Brudos asks, not looking back. “Even Ted Gunn?”

“Yes. Even you.”

This remark gives the old man pause. He turns around, a process which is precarious and lengthy on his atrophied legs. 

“What do you think you know about me, boy?” He snarls, clinging to his facade of fearless autocrat despite his obvious infirmity. 

Holden doesn’t try to assert his priestly authority. He’s entered a domain where religion is merely a shroud or a manipulation. 

“Enough.” He says, closing the space between them in a few quick strides. “A man died in your mill recently, and the town nearly mounted your head on a spike. Unsafe operations, out-of-date equipment, overworked employees - all overseen by a man who rarely leaves his home to hear his employees’ complaints.”

“How fucking dare-” Brudos begins, his voice wheezy and wobbling despite the rage frothing in his eyes. 

Holden raises a hand. “That’s what everyone else sees. It’s not necessarily what I see.”

Brudos keeps up the stare for a tense moment before another round of coughing interrupts his defiance. He presses his handkerchief to his mouth to suppress it. 

Holden gently touches his shoulder. “I see that you’re sick and suffering, but you made this trip out here because it’s important to the future of the mill, of your family. You’re a strong man, Mr. Brudos.”

Brudos’ eyes are leaking when he looks back up at Holden again, red-rimmed with exhaustion but not despair. Holden thinks a man like him would fight to his last breath, with both his legs cut out from under him. 

“We should talk more.” Holden suggests when Brudos doesn’t try to threaten him again. “After dinner. Ted told me that he’s having some entertainment in, but neither of us really want to be a part of that, do we?”

Brudos shakes his head. “Women and liquor. If he isn’t careful, those two vices will be the end of him.”

“Yes, well. We all have our weaknesses. Perhaps you’d like to visit the gardens with me? I like to walk in nature, commune with God’s creation.”

“I don’t do much walking these days.” 

“The fresh air is good for your lungs, Henry.” The aide, who had been a silent observer until this point, says. 

Brudos scowls at the young man, but it’s more fond than aggressive. 

“Fine.” He says, waving a dismissive hand. “We’ll see how I feel after dinner. I’m tired now. Get me to my room, Gene.”

The aide respectfully nods at Holden as he takes Brudos’ arm to lead him down the hall. 

Holden watches them go, a conflicted sense of triumph and horror winding through his chest. He hadn’t expected Brudos to give in so easily, but it’s clear from one conversation that the man is morose and isolated for more reasons than just his declining health. The way the sun touches your knees for the first time, he hasn’t experienced closeness with another human in some time - and Holden is about to exploit that defect in his armor. 

_ A sacrifice. So be it.  _ Gunn’s voice echoes in his head. The sacrifices keep multiplying faster than Holden can track. 

^^^

The rest of the guests filter in shortly after Henry Brudos’ arrival though dinner isn’t set to begin until five o’clock. From the window of his bedroom, Holden can see a dozen men dressed in fine clothing wandering out into the yard for a game of croquet with cocktails in their hands. Music plays from downstairs, upbeat swing tunes that intrude on the solemnity of his thoughts. 

He shifts his gaze to the road, imagining where Bill, Wendy, and Nash might have set up for the evening to watch Gunn’s unexpected cocktail party unfold. There’s plenty of seclusion in the dense forestry, or perhaps they commandeered a nearby neighbor for their purposes. Either way, this change in plans is an advantage. Nash had likened it to fish in a barrel, and tonight there’s what amounts to the entire populace of a small lake eating from Gunn’s hand. 

Holden goes into the bathroom to freshen up and put on his cassock before emerging into the festivities. When he undresses before the mirror, the abundant sunlight stretching through the window catches the healing bruises and minor puncture wounds left over from the cilice that he’s all but given up wearing. His back, too, is no more than scars, faded emblems of his once fiery devotion. 

Pushing the self-doubt from his mind, Holden washes his face and redresses. When he slides the rosary over his neck, he whispers a muted Our Father.  _ Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.  _ He has to believe that no matter what happens to his own soul, God’s will will be done; and surely, God’s will must dictate an end to Gunn’s reign over Papermill. 

When Holden descends the winding staircase down into the chattering crowd of party attendees, he’s met with more than a few bewildered stares. He lingers awkwardly along the fringe until Gunn shoulders his way past the other men in suits to put an arm around his shoulders and drag him into the atmosphere rife with jovial laughter, cigarette smoke, and pouring cocktails. 

“Don’t you clean up nicely?” Gunn says, smoothing the buttoned neckline of Holden’s cassock. 

“Thank you.” Holden murmurs, regarding Gunn’s more formal attire of suit and tie. “So do you.”

“I’ll show you around a bit, let them get a good look.” Gunn murmurs, low, and it’s like he’s parading one of the show ponies at Laurel Park in front of all of his friends. “But that’s your focus tonight.” He jabs a finger through the crowd at Henry Brudos. 

Brudos is occupying a chair in the corner, appearing none too happy to be dragged from the reclusive recesses of his home in Papermill to this superfluous party. His aide, Gene, is close at hand. 

“I spoke to him earlier.” Holden replies, “He seems receptive of my friendship.”

“Really?” Gunn asks, his brow rising. 

“Yes. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Of course. I’m only impressed that you managed to hook him before dinner even began.” 

Before Holden can elaborate, Gunn guides him into a ring of elderly gentleman trading stories and cigar smoke. 

The rest of the hour before dinner is spent in like fashion, Holden shaking hands with numerous political and business acquaintances and trying to remember all of their names while also putting on a good show of comradery with Gunn. Most of these people aren’t from Papermill. They’re judges, governors, lobbyists, police brass, accountants, and business owners. A lot of them seem to be good Catholics for the way they respect his title and listen keenly to what he’s saying. 

Gunn had done well to cast aside his brutish, boldly atheistic approach with the people he means to seduce. God opens as many doors as he can shut. 

At dinner, the talk of politics or finances is set aside. From across the twenty-foot dining table, Gunn and the party attendees swap stories that grow more ridiculous and embellished with every course and every glass of wine poured. 

It’s beyond six-thirty when a man named Webber, who had introduced himself as a Capitol Hill advisor, leans forward to catch Holden’s gaze. 

“So, tell me, Father, what maddened tale of youthfully sown wild oats do you have to regale us with?”

Holden glances up from his plate, and realizes that everyone is looking at him expectantly. 

“I, um … I don’t have any tales.”

“Please, Father,” Gunn says, waving an encouraging hand from the head of the table, “You’re among friends, not the bishops at the Diocese. Surely, you haven’t always been so … well-behaved.”

Holden meets Gunn’s stare, reading the challenge shimmering in the man’s eyes. Heroin tablets and insomnia - he already sees the shadows of a much deeper history, and he won’t let Holden leave this table without divulging at least one secret. Unlike the equal give-and-take of their lunch conversation, the pressure of the entire dining table staring at Holden gives Gunn an edge to demand honesty. 

“Well, um-” Holden says, setting his fork and knife down carefully on the white tablecloth, “I suppose you’re right, Ted. None of us are without sin.”

A hush falls over the dining hall. 

“I wasn’t born into a well-bred family.” Holden says, “In fact, I grew up in an orphanage in Brooklyn in the middle of a world at war. It wasn’t exactly what you would call … nurturing. As a result, I was not - as Ted put it - always so well-behaved.”

They’re all on the edges of their seats in rapt attention. Something fascinating about watching a priest admit to sin, even the hint of it. 

“I was twenty years old - living recklessly, I’ll admit. I was staying at a boarding house in Manhattan when I met this guy, Ed. We got to be friends, but the longer I spent around him, the more I realized I didn’t know where his money was coming from. He didn’t work a job, and he didn’t beg for money on the street. He had a lot of - how should I put this? -  _ vices _ . So, I wondered how he kept up with them. One day, I followed him to a house just like this one. Big, fancy, gushing with money and luxury. He was attending a party that he didn’t have any right to be attending, with people he shouldn’t have known. I waited until he came out, and demanded to know what he was doing. That’s when he told me he was casing the place.”

“How did he get into the party?” Webber asks. 

“By invitation. That was the thing about Ed. He played the long con. He was a fraud, and he could play any role. He’d managed to make friends with one of the boys who lived in the house. He’d been planning it for weeks.”

“So what happened?” Gunn asks, sitting forward with his glass of wine forgotten in his hand. “You didn’t turn him in, did you?”

“No. The opposite. I asked to join him.” 

“You’re kidding.” One of the Arlington police captains says from three seats to Holden’s left. 

“Keep in mind, I was quite a different person then.” Holden says, holding up a finger. “I had just spent my last dime on keeping my room at the boarding house for another week, and I still needed to eat. So, I asked to join him, and he said yes. The next night, we sneaked into the house. He knew from the young man he’d befriended that the occupants of the house would be gone for the night, and he had already made a copy of the key. It was simple. Then, we got into the office and there it was-”

“There what was?” Gunn murmurs. 

“Her.  _ The Girl with The Pearl Earring _ .”

“What? You’re telling a tall tale, aren’t you, Father?” Webber demands. 

“Just listen.” Holden says, “We took it along with some jewelry and cash. Ed got in contact with his man to fence the stolen painting and jewelry, but in the meantime, he stored it in my room at the boarding house with a sheet pulled over it. Now, I had never stolen anything of this magnitude in my life. I was overcome with guilt. Every night, when I crawled into bed, I could feel her eyes watching me from the canvas, shrouded in a thin, white sheet - it was like she was a ghost, haunting my nightmares. I imagined that we would be caught. The owner of the house would figure out the con, and the police would be knocking down our door. By the end of the first week, I was sick to my stomach. I told Ed that we needed to get rid of the painting, or better yet, turn ourselves in. He advised me to wait for the payoff.” 

Bated silence hangs over the dining hall as Holden lets the story dangle. From the end of the table, Brudos coughs coarsely into his silk napkin. 

“So, the next week, the fence finally shows up.” Holden says, spreading his hands. “I was so relieved. He takes the painting from beneath the sheet. I said ‘hurry up’ because she was mocking me with my own regret, and I thought I’d feel better once the money was in my hand. He examined it carefully, and then started to laugh.” 

“What? Why was he laughing?” Webber asks. 

“It was a fake.” Holden says, shaking his head. “A cheap copy. No one was looking for it. The police certainly weren’t going to be kicking down our door for it. Those eyes of history that I thought were watching me had likely been printed on modern paper within the last five years.”

“My God.” Gunn says, erupting into a chuckle. He begins to clap. “Wonderful, Father. What a story!”

The other dinner guests join the light applause as they mutter their agreement. When the ripple of conversation dies down, Webber asks, “But is it true? It sounds to me like a fine parable in the fashion of Jesus.” 

“It all happened exactly as I said.” 

“But did you learn your lesson?” Gunn asks, “Did the memory of your guilt teach you not to take things that don’t belong to you?”

“Of course.” Holden replies, taking a demure sip of his water. “Would I be here today if I hadn’t?” 

^^^

After dinner, the party moves into the drawing room where the cocktails and champagne keep flowing and the haze of cigarette smoke clogs the air. Gunn plays cards at the big, round table at the center of the room with several other men, a high stakes game that might have appeared hostile if he hadn’t known otherwise. 

Half an hour later, the entertainment arrives by bus - a gaggle of pretty, buxom women in low-cut dresses and risque red lipstick who flood the foyer with chortling laughter and suggestive gazes. 

Holden finds Henry Brudos on his own in the other room just as the girls are tumbling onto laps. 

“How about that walk in the gardens now?” He asks. 

“It’s past dusk.”

“It will be a moonlit stroll, then.”

“All right.” Brudos says, waving Gene over to help him up out of the chair. “This thug insists the air is good for my breathing.” 

Gene smiles, gently. “Yes it is, Henry.”

“See the way he manhandles me.” Brudos mutters as Gene guides him to his feet, but the two of them are sharing a private joke. 

Holden turns over this brief, yet telling exchange in his mind as they make their way slowly out the back door to where the sky is clinging to the faded purple of sunset. Brudos isn’t the mean, bitter bastard he leads people to believe he is; in fact, beneath the gruff exterior and persistent scowl, there’s a lonely man longing for companionship, but unable to fully receive it without complaint. 

With the wind at their cheeks, the three of them gradually descend the veranda steps together into the garden path. Not many flowers are left on the assorted plants, but the varieties of trees are breath-taking in their colorful display of encroaching autumnal death. 

They walk a ways before Brudos extracts his arm from Gene’s grasp. He holds his hand out to Holden. 

Holden offers his arm, surprised by the gesture. 

“It’s all right, Gene, we can take it from here.” Brudos says, dismissing his aide with a wave. 

“I’ll be right here if you need me.” Gene replies. 

Holden casts the worried caretaker a reassuring smile before leading Brudos further down the path littered by fallen leaves. 

“That was a clever story.” Brudos says, slightly wheezing from exertion. “At dinner.”

“Like I said, it did happen.”

“Even a memory is a story after so long.” 

Holden glances down at Brudos with a faint smile. “Yes, well. It’s the palatable version.”

“Hmm. So how did a con man become a priest?”

“By hitting rock bottom, and having nowhere to look up to but Heaven.”

“Religion saved you.” Brudos says, stifling a cough with the back of his hand. “That’s poetic.”

“It’s not. It was a long and ugly struggle to put my past behind me.”

“But you did.”

“Yes. This is me now.” Holden says, motioning to the cassock and collar. “My legacy that I want to preserve even if the past is unkind, or if certain people will only ever remember that old version of me.” 

“Your legacy …Dense words for a young man.”

“We have to think about our legacies before they consume us, don’t we?”

Brudos looks up at him with a startled glare. 

“When I said I saw something else, I meant it.” Holden murmurs, pausing from his walking so that he can turn to face Brudos fully. “I see you hiding away in your mansion, and it hurts my heart. God meant for all of us to be loved. He gave us our families so we would never be alone, our communities so that we could always be uplifted, and our friends so that we would always be accepted. Without those connections, we’re utterly alone. Loveless in a way that can’t be replaced by wealth or success.”

“You don’t know anything about my life.” Brudos says, shaking his head. “I built my company from the ground up. I worked for years, led my family out of poverty. The Brudoses were nothing before me, and they’re going to be nothing after me not because of anything I’ve done but because of those damn wolves up on Wall Street. They ruined us, you know. Bad investments, excessive spending, no fucking limits. I barely made it out of Black Tuesday with two pennies to rub together. Papermill would be bankrupt already without the mill.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you.” Holden says, lowering his head. “But it happened to all of us. There’s hundreds of families in Papermill counting on their jobs.”

“Are they now? If you'll recall, they're on strike.”

“Because they feel they have to in order to be treated properly.”

“I’ve done my best. I always have.” Brudos says, waving an impatient hand. “But I can only do so much. John controls most of it now, and I can’t persuade him to care about anyone but himself. I can’t run the company the way I used to be because of this damn- … this damn-” 

His vitriol sparks a coughing fit, and Holden braces one hand on his elbow and the other at his lower back to keep the man from toppling. 

When the wheezing eases, Brudos swallows hard and shakes his head. 

“Fucking hell. My son is an idiot - both of them are. One of them treats the mill like his own personal playground, and the other parades around in a sheriff costume like he actually means to uphold the law. He’s been going behind my back for years, getting into bed with Gunn. Well, they’ve both fucking ruined me.”

“So that’s going to be your legacy?” Holden asks, softly. “That you let your two sons ruin you. That you died with everyone hating you, and not remembering all the good things that you gave to the town?”

Brudos swings a watery glare at Holden, but it’s glazed with stunned horror. Holden wonders, despite his illness, if the man has ever contemplated the concept of his own mortality. 

“You can’t fix the economy.” Holden continues, “You can’t fix your children. But the mill - that’s something you can make certain is stable before you’re gone. Even if it is with someone like Gunn, at least the people of the town wouldn’t be out of their jobs. If that happened, so many people would suffer. Is that what you want?”

Brudos shakes his head, and keeps walking without Holden’s assistance. 

“I can’t believe I’m actually considering it.”

Holden hurries after him. “You are?”

“Maybe I’m just old and senile, and I’m being sweet-talked by a con man turned priest.” Brudos says, laughing gruffly. “Maybe I’m just fucking tired of it all.”

Holden puts a hand on Brudos’ arm to stop his hobbling gait. 

“Henry, I want to promise you something.” 

“Hmm?” Brudos grunts, casting him a distrustful gaze. 

“Even if you sell to Gunn, he isn’t going to stay in power much longer. His sins are going to catch up with him. Vengeance is the Lord’s, and that man is long overdue for some vengeance.”

Brudos stares at him quietly for a long moment, his eyes glassy and subdued. Holden can see his words sinking in, and he’s afraid he’s said too much. But in an instant, the sentimentality is gone from Brudos’ bloodshot eyes, and he’s the same cynical old man who Holden met in the stairwell. 

“Talk is cheap.” He says, moving past Holden with fresh determination. “I’ll believe in God’s vengeance when I see it.” 


	18. the wounds of the past, unhealed, unforgotten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holden completes the last leg of the trip to Maryland; but all pretense is stripped away, and some things may never be the same again.

When it becomes clear that Gunn doesn’t mean to travel to Laurel Park this afternoon, Bill, Wendy, and Nash improvise a new plan. 

Bill stays behind to watch the house from his vantage point across the road while Wendy and Nash drive into town to secure accommodations. Nash announces that he’s going to get into contact with his people about their other tail on Boris Brudos. They’ll each take a shift to watch the house through the night. 

While they’re gone, Bill sits on a fallen tree trunk and smokes a cigarette with a pair of binoculars in his hand. It looks like Gunn is having a party based on the number of cars that rolled in around three-thirty.

He wonders how Holden is coping with the change in plans. He had sounded nervous this morning on the phone despite his assurances that he was fine. Bill’s nerves are raw with worry, but there’s nothing he can do besides wait out the night. 

Wendy returns around five o’clock in the car. 

“What are you doing back here already?” He asks when she pulls off the road and among the trees. 

“I have no interest in staying back at the hotel room when I could be here.” She replies, leaning over to push the passenger door open for him. 

He climbs inside, and casts her a rueful smile. “I can’t say I don’t appreciate the company. Any news from Nash’s people?”

“They’re watching Boris closely. From their intel, there’s supposed to be a shipment tonight.” 

“They’re going to bust him? Did you tell him that doing that could alert Gunn?”

“I think it’s beyond our control now.” She says, her gaze distant on Gunn’s mansion. “After today, we may not be able to keep what we’re doing a secret.”

“Gunn’s good at burning evidence. If this gets back to his friends at the BOI …”

“Based on what Holden can find, I’m hoping to go beyond the Bureau to the DOJ.”

“I told him not to do anything reckless.” Bill mutters, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette. 

“It’s undercover work, Bill. The very nature of it is dangerous. He knows what he signed up for.”

“Yeah, and I promised him we weren’t going to let him get hurt in the process.”

“I’m sorry that you make promises you might not be able to keep.” 

Their gazes meet in the dusky afternoon light stretching past the windshield. Wendy’s expression is cool, as if chiseled from stone. 

Bill mutters a scoff, and averts his gaze back to the house. 

“I don’t mean to be callous.” Wendy admits, after a moment. “But I’ve been trying to expose Gunn for what he is for years. I’m willing to do it by whatever means necessary.”

“I want him gone, too, but enough people have already been hurt because of me.” Bill says, taking a hard drag of his cigarette. 

“You feel responsible for Holden.”

“Yeah, I do. He’s involved in this because of me.”

“He’s involved because he signed himself up.”

Bill shakes his head, not meeting her probing gaze. 

“Bill, you cannot get personally involved.” She says, her tone taking on an understanding sobriety. “If Gunn were to ever find out how much you care about him, he would exploit it. If how you feel about Father Ford impairs your judgment, this investigation could become compromised. It could-”

“It won’t.” Bill says, sharply, casting her a glare. 

She draws back, her eyes sparking with intuition at his vehemence. 

“I’m only telling you this because of personal experience.” She says, softening her tone. “Gunn doesn’t care about anyone but himself. When he sees that his enemy does, he views it as a weakness.” 

Bill frowns. “What do you mean? Personal experience?”

Wendy draws in a slow, shaky breath. “This isn’t my first time investigating Gunn. Years ago, when I was a new agent with the Bureau, I witnessed the bribes and the treachery working under him. I was young, idealistic. I thought if I presented the information to our superiors, they would make quick work of him. Instead, the one person I cared about was disgraced and discarded by the Bureau as a direct result of my actions.”

“Who?” 

Wendy shakes her head, her mouth pursing against a quiver. “Her name was Kay. She was his secretary. She had all of the proof, the knowledge of his illegal operations. She was resistant to the plan, but I told her that our lives would improve once he was gone … I was so foolish. He knew he couldn’t get rid of me because of my father’s relationship with Hoover. Instead, he got rid of her. She was innocent, and I used her - and he used that knowledge to lord over me every single day until his retirement.”

Bill considers Wendy’s story with a knot rising in the back of his throat. It’s more detail than she’s ever shared with him, but only a shadow of the full truth. There’s more lurking beneath the surface that he doubts she would ever admit to; and he’s fine leaving it unburied knowing that the two of them have a mutual understanding. 

“That’s why you can’t care too much.” Wendy says, her vacant stare turning back to Bill with a misty sheen. “If you put your feelings over the investigation, they’re going to win every time.” 

“I won’t. I can do this.” 

He isn’t sure whether she believes he’s making promises he can’t keep again or not.

After the sun has gone down, they observe a bus arrive with a group of women aboard. Bill gets out of the car, and goes across the street to get a closer look. It’s too dark for photographs, but he manages to write down the license plate number before the bus pulls away again. 

When he gets back to the car, Wendy asks, “Prostitutes?”

“Looks like it to me. I think this party is going all night.”

“Maybe Holden can identify most of the people in attendance.” 

“There’s a lot of cars in the lot. When it quiets down, I could sneak back over to get those licence numbers.” 

Wendy nods, thoughtfully. “Okay. We just need to be very careful. If Gunn gets so much as a whiff of this investigation, it could all be over.”

They wait another few hours until it seems as if no one is going to be venturing out of the mansion and away from the women and spirits. Taking his notebook and pencil, Bill creeps back across the road, and cuts through the gardens at the eastern side of the mansion to where the cars are parked. Most of them are convertibles and coupes, their flashy paint and chrome tires glistening in the moonlight. He crouches down behind a retaining wall, and uses the binoculars to write down the plate numbers and the makes and models that he can distinguish. He’s almost done scribbling down the last license number when a whispered voice behind him makes him freeze. 

“Hello?”

Horror ripples down his spine in a cold wave for a few terrible seconds before relieving realization strikes him. He turns around to see Holden emerging from the shadows, and walking unsteadily toward him with his cassock rustling in the breeze. 

“Bill?” Holden whispers, recognition striking his face. 

“Come here.” Bill hisses, peeking over at the house to make certain no one else is around. 

Holden rushes to his side, and kneels down next to him behind the three-foot high retaining wall. 

“What are you doing?” He whispers, his eyes wide and luminous with glistening worry. 

“Gathering information.” Bill says, flashing the notebook. “What are you doing out here at this time of night?”

“It’s too loud in the house. I couldn’t sleep.”

“What the hell’s going on? Why aren’t we in Maryland?”

“This was the plan.” Holden says, nodding at the house. “Henry Brudos is here. Gunn wanted me to persuade him into selling the mill.”

“Really? Henry came out of that house?”

“Yes. Laurel Park is just the cherry on top. Gunn is certain of his victory.”

“Should he be?”

Holden lowers his chin, terse resignation rippling across his jawline. “Yes.”

“The old man is gonna sell?”

“I believe so.”

Bill shifts a bewildered gaze back to the mansion. It’s just as Holden predicted. 

“Shit.” He mutters, “If Gunn has control of the mill, he’ll have the whole town in a stranglehold.”

Holden nods. “We’re not going to let that happen, are we?”

“Not if we can help it.”

Holden’s wide, shimmering gaze holds onto Bill’s with tremulous hope. Even in the darkness, Bill can see how pale he is, how tired. 

“Are you okay?” Bill asks, grasping his arm. 

Holden nods, but Bill can feel a shudder beneath his palm. 

“You sure?”

Holden nods again. “Yes, I just … Yes. I should get back before someone notices I’m gone.”

“Yeah, okay. Be careful.”

“You, too.” 

Holden begins to rise to his feet, but Bill catches him by the wrist. “Holden, wait.”

“What?” Holden murmurs, dropping back down to his knees with one hand braced against Bill’s chest. 

Bill cradles Holden’s cheek, cool beneath the fall breeze, and draws him closer. 

Holden shudders, his eyelids slipping shut in quiet surrender just before Bill kisses him, slowly and thoroughly. His lips part, expelling a soft, choked whimper against the pressure of Bill’s lips sealing a reassurance into their mingling saliva. 

When he pulls back, Holden’s eyelashes flutter and his throat shifts against a thick swallow. He turns his face against Bill’s thumb caressing at the soft ridge of his cheekbone. 

“I mean it.” Bill whispers, low. “Be careful.”

Holden purses his damp, kissed lips and nods his head. Then he pulls away quickly before Bill can reel him back in again, and darts back down the garden path with his head tucked down against the breeze. 

Bill leans against the coarse brick of the retaining wall, a heavy sigh escaping his chest. Wendy’s astute warnings not to get personally involved sink well below the hum of concern in his mind; he’d been involved long before they began investigating Gunn, perhaps from the moment Holden pulled him up from the graveyard grass and led him out of the rain. 

^^^

Holden trudges back to his guest bedroom with Bill’s kiss still tingling on his mouth. Even creeping toward ten o’clock, the party isn’t winding down. No one in the crowded parlor notices when he slips past them, and up the winding staircase to the second floor. They’re all occupied with their war stories, card games, and ladies of the evening sitting on their laps and pretending to hang onto every word. 

As Holden reaches the door of his bedroom, a voice behind him startles him around. 

“Father Ford,” Gunn says, stepping out of his office with his hands on his hips, “You’re still up.”

Holden turns around, flexing his fingers into uneasy fists at his sides. “Yes.” 

“Are my guests being too disruptive?”

“No, of course not.”

Gunn draws closer, a curious frown knitting his brow. He notes Holden’s trembling - the lingering rush of adrenaline at seeing Bill, touching him, wanting nothing more than to leave this house with him - and construes it as something else. 

“Insomnia?” He guesses, “Or withdrawal?”

Holden offers a limp smile. “Perhaps a bit of both.”

“I see. Why didn’t you bring the pills I gave you?”

“I told you, I wanted to keep my mind clear.”

“Well, you’ve done what I asked.” 

“I have?”

“Henry is going to sell, isn’t he?” Gunn says, putting an arm around Holden’s shoulders and leading him slowly down the hall. 

“I believe so.”

“Then you can relax. Enjoy yourself the way everyone else is.” 

Holden casts Gunn a defiant gaze. 

“Please, Father. You don’t have to pretend to be strong or self-denying with me. I have a small stash on hand.” He says, reaching up to touch Holden’s cheek gently, in the same place the warmth of Bill’s palm lingers. “I want you to be happy and rewarded.”

_ You mean compliant?  _ Holden thinks, but instead, he nods. 

“Stay here.” Gunn says. 

Holden draws in a steadying breath as Gunn slips into his office. Moving quietly, he presses himself up to the edge of the door, and peers inside. 

Gunn finds the button at the lower left corner of the frame on the Hopper painting, and the front panel swings open. As Holden had predicted, a safe with a combination lock resides behind the artwork. 

Gunn spins the dial. 11-23-19-25. 

Holden presses his eyes shut, and burns those numbers into his mind. Then he pulls away from the door. 

Gunn returns a moment later with two tablets in his hand. He rolls them across his palm thoughtfully as he leans closer, staring smugly into Holden’s stricken gaze. 

“Open your mouth.” He orders, softly. 

“No, it’s okay. I can-”

“I said, open it.”

Holden trembles, his pulse rising to a thudding, nauseous beat in his ears. Horrified heat curls up his throat and cheeks as he tremulously parts his lips. 

Gunn catches him by the chin, and draws him closer. His eyes are cold, calculating, and Holden wonders if he can’t see the panic stinging the corners of his eyes. 

Holden exhales a breath, forcing himself to relax. He closes his eyes as Gunn presses one of the tablets to his tongue. The bitter powder instantly melts into his saliva, rapidly dissolving. He presses his lips shut, struggling not to swallow. 

“Good.” Gunn murmurs, dropping the other tablet into Holden’s hand. “And another if you need it.” 

Holden nods, breathing shakily through his nose. Despite his frozen tongue, he can feel the acrid taste drizzling down the back of his throat. 

“Go to bed, Father. Get some rest. You’ve earned it.” 

Holden rushes past Gunn before he can betray his own horror. Once he gets into his bedroom, he stumbles into the bathroom and falls to his knees in front of the toilet. He spits out the pill, half-dissolved, and watches it float in a slow circle on the surface of the water. Mechanically, he shoves two fingers into his throat, and vomits into the toilet. 

When it’s done, he climbs shakily to his feet, and rinses his mouth with water from the tap. Leaning over the sink, he lifts his gaze to his reflection. His cheeks are blanched white, pinched with slight color at the peaks from vomiting, and his eyes are bloodshot and fixed wide with glassy dread. 

Clutching onto his rosary, he presses his eyes shut against gathering tears, and whispers a raspy Hail Mary. The familiar prayer offers some reprieve, but when he lays down on his bed, he can’t sleep. 

His mind is racing, thinking of the moment when this trip is over and he’s back in Bill’s arms. It’s all he wants right now, but first there’s one more thing he must do, one more test of his resolve and defiance of his fear; and it begins with the numbers 11-23-19-25. 

^^^

The morning at Laurel Park unfolds into the perfect fall day with cloudless skies of crisp, deep blue and a temperate breeze of no less than sixty-five degrees. Beneath the unencumbered sunlight, the ponies’ coats gleam rich shades of auburn, ivory, and black as their long, elegant necks and powerful haunches strain toward the finish line. 

Gunn seems uninterested in the races except for the betting sheet in his lap. He’s deep in conversation with Henry Brudos, and two other men Holden had been introduced to last night, his accountant, Miles Forster, and his lawyer, Anderson Griffiths. Holden is no more than an accessory at this point, having fulfilled Gunn’s purposes last night. The four of them are talking about the details of the sale over cocktails and shrimp appetizers. 

Holden tries to focus on what they’re saying, but he’d hardly slept last night, and his mind is elsewhere. While Gunn and Brudos squabble in financial jargon over the particulars of the agreement Griffiths had drawn up, he can’t suppress the rampant anxiety knotting in his gut at the thought of the clandestinely acquired items from Gunn’s safe burning a hole in his suitcase that’s currently residing in the trunk of Gunn’s Cadillac. 

He’s not certain now whether he should have taken anything. If there’s nothing of use inside the documents, he may have tipped his hand and exposed himself. Bill’s voice keeps repeating in his brain:  _ Don’t do anything reckless. Be careful.  _ He wonders what Bill would have done in that situation. Taken the risk or played it safe? It’s only a small comfort to him that Bill has never played anything safe in his life. 

By lunch time, Gunn and his people have ironed out the details of the sale with Brudos. They take a break from the current bout of races to partake in a light meal of toasted ham sandwiches and peaches with cream before heading back to see where their bets fall. 

Gunn, of course, manages to rake in a fine profit. Holden wonders if the races weren’t fixed. 

As they leave the stadium, Gunn, Griffiths, and Forster walk ahead while Holden hangs back with Brudos and Gene. 

“I’m not going to thank you.” Brudos says, putting a coarse hand on Holden’s elbow. “I still feel as if I’m betraying some part of myself by selling to that bastard.”

“I didn’t expect you to.”

“Well, whether the people of Papermill want to believe it or not, there is a heart beating in this cold, old chest.” Brudos says, thumping a hand on his sternum. “I never wanted any of my workers to get hurt, much less die. I’m going to do what I can for the Granger family with the money from the sale.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“It’s the least I can do.” Brudos says, “Now that I’ve sold my soul to the devil.”

Holden squints against the afternoon sunlight as they walk past the Laurel Park gates to the lot beyond. Gunn is already waiting by his car, smoking a cigarette impatiently. Holden ignores him, and turns back to Brudos’ cutting stare. 

“Oh, don’t you feel sorry for me, young man.” Brudos says, waving a gruff hand. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, and now I’m paying for them. You should take this as a lesson. What does he have over you anyway?”

“Over me?”

“Yes, and don’t fucking lie. I can tell you’re a good boy. You wouldn’t fall in with someone like Ted Gunn on purpose, and you certainly wouldn’t help him if he wasn’t manipulating you into doing it. So whatever he has over you, you should take the hit to your reputation and get the hell out of Dodge before he drags you down into the dirt.”

Holden nods, pinching his teeth over his lower lip. “That’s good advice, Henry.”

Brudos smiles grimly. “I’ve been around for a while, son. It better be good advice.”

“I’m going to take it.” Holden says, “I hope that means something to you. I’m not going to be involved with Ted much longer. Like I said, his days of unmitigated power over our town are coming to an end.” 

Brudos pats him roughly on the arm. “Whatever you have planned, you better make it quick. I’d like to be around to see that son of a bitch fall.”

Holden lingers in front of the archway announcing  _ Laurel Park  _ for a long moment after Gene guides Brudos away towards their car. There isn’t so much as a goodbye uttered, but Holden wonders if he hasn’t seen the last of Henry Brudos.

^^^

Bill has never been quite so relieved to see the outline of Papermill and her smoke stacks on the horizon than he is this afternoon as he drives at a distance behind Gunn’s Cadillac carrying him and Holden back to St. Stephen’s. 

He and Wendy had parted ways after Laurel Park. She was on her way back to D.C. to rendezvous with Nash about the tail on Boris Brudos. No mention of an arrest had come through yet, but that means almost nothing if Customs is holding him for questioning. The BOI didn’t even have a file on Boris, giving them no incentive to request intra-department communication. 

Momentarily, Bill isn’t concerned with Boris’ arrest or lack thereof, though he should be. He drives around the block after he sees Gunn dropping Holden off, and when he comes back around, the Cadillac is gone. He makes another circle just to be safe before pulling into the church parking lot, and walking as conservatively as he can to parsonage steps. 

The door swings open before Bill can raise his fist to knock. 

Holden stands on the other side, his eyes wide and bloodshot yet relieved to see Bill. His mouth trembles as Bill wordlessly enters the parsonage and pushes the door shut behind him. 

“Are you okay?” Bill asks. 

Holden nods, but his eyes are pinching against a tide of emotion. 

“Come here.” Bill murmurs, slipping his fingers into the familiar niche of Holden’s nape, and pulling him to his chest. 

Holden folds down against him, and wraps his arms around to cling to Bill’s back. 

“Did something happen?” Bill asks, pressing a kiss to Holden’s temple. He strokes his fingers through Holden’s hair, noting a tremble in the process. 

Holden slowly lifts his face from Bill’s chest, and sucks in a deep breath. “I need to show you something.”

“Okay …”

Holden slips out of Bill’s embrace, and leads them down the hall to his bedroom. He pulls his suitcase off the floor, and lays it out on the bed. Unzipping the lid, he opens it to reveal two leather-bound ledgers and a small, black book secured shut with a tiny padlock. 

“What are these?” Bill asks, shifting closer. 

“They came from Gunn’s safe.” Holden replies, one hand pressed nervously to his mouth. 

Bill casts him an alarmed stare as he grabs one of the ledgers from the suitcase. He flips it open, and his awe swells as he recognizes dates, notations, and figures. Gunn’s financials boiled down to a list of legitimate debits and credits. He quickly sets the first ledger aside with trembling fingers, and opens the other one. 

“Holden …” He whispers, running his fingertips down the incriminating memo lines. “This is … God, this is everything. The cooked books and the real ones.”

Holden stares at him, wide-eyed. “You mean … you’re not angry?”

“What? Why would I be angry?”

“You told me not to do anything reckless. I  _ stole  _ from Gunn. I broke into his safe, and took these things in the middle of the night. If he finds out they’re missing, he’s going to-”

“He’s going to fucking prison, that’s what.” Bill says, casting the ledger aside. 

He grabs Holden by the cheeks, and pulls him into a hard kiss that makes Holden yelp in surprise. The rigidity in his body quickly melts, however, as Bill slips a hand down his back to cradle the arch of his spine and softens the approach of his mouth. Clutching at Bill’s chest, Holden leans against him, and groans softly from the back of his throat. 

Their mouths stroke deliberately until Bill draws back with his forehead pressed to Holden’s, his breath rasping in needy bursts from his lips. He rubs his thumb across Holden’s cheek, trying to martial his desires, but failing miserably. 

“I was worried.” He murmurs. 

“Me, too, but it’s over for now.” 

“The whole time, I couldn’t think of anything but this …” Bill tightens his arm around Holden’s waist, drawing him closer. His voice falters with a groan, “God, I want you.” 

Holden shifts nervously against Bill’s chest, gaze darting bashfully toward the floor.

“Please.” Bill murmurs, kissing at the blush riding high on his cheek. “Let me make love to you.”

Holden swallows hard, and bites at his lower lip, a soft whine coming up from his throat. 

“Not to violate you,” Bill whispers, gently turning Holden’s face back to him. “I love you, and I want you to feel it.”

Despite his fervent explanation, Holden is already nodding his head. 

“Yes?” Bill asks, his heart thundering. 

“Yes.” Holden whispers, his voice hoarse with anticipation and need. “I want that, too.”

Bill presses a hasty kiss to his forehead. “Okay. Stay here. I’ll get the oil.”

Holden nods, his fingers clinging to Bill’s shirt until Bill backs away. Their gazes hold, and a faint smile quivers on Holden’s mouth. 

“Go. I’ll be right here.” He whispers, sinking down to the edge of the mattress with a coy gaze. 

Bill rushes back down the hall to the kitchen. His heart is galloping in his chest, his blood surging with desire as he grabs the bottle of oil from the cabinet, and returns to the bedroom. 

Holden has moved the suitcase back to the floor, and is sitting in the middle of the duvet with his cassock and trousers removed. He pulls the white collar from his throat, and sets it on the nightstand. His eyes are glassy and plaintive, a murky hesitation lingering below the obvious desire burgeoning in his underwear. 

As Bill undresses, Holden’s quivering fingers toy with the hem of his shirt. He stares down at the fabric of his bedspread, teeth worrying at his lower lip. 

Bill kicks off his trousers, and crawls onto the bed in front of him.

“Hey, are you okay?” He asks, catching Holden’s chin and turning his eyes back up.

Holden purses his mouth against a quiver.

“What’s wrong?”

Holden pulls his chin away, and swallows hard. “Nothing. Can we just …”

“Holden, I’m not forcing you. If it’s too much-”

“No, it isn’t that.” Holden says, abruptly pushing away from the sheets to crawl into Bill’s lap. He wraps both arms around Bill’s neck, and presses a kiss to his mouth. “It isn’t that. I want you, too. I want everything with you …”

Bill strokes Holden’s flushed cheek, the faintest moisture gathering at the corner of his eye. “Then what is it?”

“It’s me. You give me everything - all of you every time, and I …”

Bill waits as Holden’s voice crumples, and he breathes shakily through his nostrils. He rubs a reassuring down Holden’s back. 

Holden’s eyes spring open again, vivid blue against the sheen of tears. He retracts his arms from Bill’s neck, and reaches down to grasp the hem of his shirt. 

“I have to show you something else.” Holden whispers, unsteadily. 

“Okay …” 

Holden swallows nervously, but pulls the shirt off over his head in one swift motion. The black fabric parts from his pale skin, the compact musculature of his shoulders, the defined ridges of his collarbones, the banded ripple of his biceps, and at last, the milky length of his forearms. 

When the sleeves slide from his wrists, Bill can see the healed, white scars that stripe their way down the backs of his upper arms and devolve into a gnarled, indistinguishable mass across his inner forearms. Holden stretches them out on display, keeping his chin turned away and his eyes screwed shut against Bill’s silently horrified perusal. 

The realization sinks in. Bill wants to be shocked. He wants to demand who it was that did this to Holden. But he knows. He’s seen the fresh marks of the whip, the biting teeth of the cilice, the way Holden tortures himself with his own shortcomings and mistakes. All of these scars are old, but they are only a different form of mutilation left behind but not forgotten. 

“Can I …?” He asks, softly, reaching out a hand to the mottled flesh over Holden’s wrist. 

Holden creeps his wet eyes open, and nods stiffly. 

Cradling Holden’s elbow, Bill draws the arm closer, and runs his fingertips along the uneven ridges of scar tissue. 

Holden shudders, a quiet sob slipping from his throat. “I’m sorry.” 

“What are you apologizing for?” Bill asks, shifting his worried gaze from Holden’s arm to his twisted face. 

“I hid this from you.” Holden whispers, falteringly. “I lied to you. I’ve been lying since we met … pretending to be something I’m not. I’m not worthy of those vestments, Bill. Of the cloth and the collar, my appointment in the church. Of any of it. I’m a fraud, and a- … a-” 

“No, you aren’t.” Bill says, fiercely, exchanging his grasp on Holden’s elbow for his tear-stained cheeks. “Listen to me. You’re not a fraud. I know who you are.”

“Yes, and this is what I am!” Holden cries, thrusting one scarred arm up between them. “A pile of ruined, useless flesh! Used up, damaged, self-loathing-”

Bill kisses him before any further vitriol can emerge. Holden grunts against his mouth, both hands pushing at Bill’s chest, but Bill topples them down against the sheets. He catches Holden’s flailing wrists, and pins them firmly above his head. When he leans back, Holden stares up at him with aghast, wet eyes, his mouth shivering and kissed pink. 

“Let me go, Bill.” Holden grunts, wiggling beneath the weight of Bill’s hips bearing down on his own. “You don’t really want this, do you? You don’t want someone like me-”

“Holden, shut up.” Bill says, sharply. 

Holden’s mouth clamps shut, his eyes going round with disbelief. 

Bill exhales an exasperated sigh. “I’m sorry. I mean, yes - yes, Holden, I do want someone like you. You should know that I, more than anyone, know something about being a fucking fraud. I’ve confessed all of my sins to you. This doesn’t scare me.”

Holden goes still against the sheets except for the flutter of his eyelashes setting tears free down his temples. He doesn’t resist as Bill leans down to kiss him, softer this time, waiting for Holden’s mouth to open and accept the offered succor. When he does part his lips to the stroke of Bill’s mouth, he exhales a choked sound of resignation. 

Bill releases Holden’s wrists when they go limp under his hands. Cradling his jaw, he tilts Holden’s mouth into a steeper angle beneath his own, and braces his thumb over his chin to gently guide his mouth open wider. Holden groans as Bill’s tongue infiltrates his mouth gradually, creeping forward and tasting the soft, inner swell of his lower lip, the quiver of his tongue, the sweet ridges of his palate. He lays still and submissive, letting Bill’s mouth kiss his own thoroughly, letting it suck his lips raw without fighting, letting his tongue go limp to the suction and not recoiling. When Bill draws back, brushing his nose up against Holden’s, his tear-encrusted eyes slip open to regard Bill with hazy, exhausted capitulation. 

Neither of them speak as Bill moves lower, guiding his neck open wide to the branding path of his kisses winding down into the tender notch below his jaw. His legs fall open beneath the slow grind of Bill’s hips, and their erections collide through layers of fabric, building a dull ache that can’t yet distract from Bill’s meticulous cataloging of exposed skin. 

When he’s thoroughly tasted Holden’s sweet neck, he laves the hollow between his collarbones, and draws a wet line with his tongue down the staggered crevice of his sternum. 

Holden whimpers. His white-knuckled grasp on the sheets flees into grabbing fingers at Bill’s nape when Bill’s tongue scathes at one puckered nipple, lapping it to tender engorgement before sucking it into his mouth. 

“Bill …” Holden whines in protest, his nails digging into Bill’s neck. 

Bill releases flesh from his mouth, and casts a firm gaze up at Holden. “Trust me?”

Holden’s brow is puckered with conflict, but he nods his head. 

“Then lay still.” Bill suggests, turning his attention to Holden’s untouched nipple. 

Holden retrieves his nails from Bill’s nape, and stretches his arms above his head. His fingers tangle together as Bill’s mouth breathes hot across the tender pucker of flesh before the wet treatment of his tongue returns. 

“Ohh …” Holden whispers, his back arching beneath the circling pressure of Bill’s tongue. 

Bill hums a quiet reply. He watches Holden’s face from the corner of his eye, the way it flinches and trembles with needy agony. It’s still hard for him to let himself feel this and enjoy it, but Bill is determined to divest those tortured notions from his mind - at least for the length of one night. 

With both nipples rosy, wet, and hard, Bill moves down Holden’s fluttering ribs. Holden’s hips wiggle when he gets down into the soft and sensitive stretch of his belly, but Bill doesn’t pin him down this time. He lets Holden moan and tremble while he pays close attention to this warm, downy portion of his body he’s wanted to admire for some time. The way the pliant flesh stretches out into thin, jutting hip bones allures him, drawing him lower and lower, until he’s slipping the underwear from Holden’s thighs. 

“Oh- … Oh, God-” Holden’s voice emerges in a low, squeaky hiccup of need. 

His legs eagerly stretch open again the moment the underwear are gone, and his cock is on full display, stretching pink and hard from lush pubic hair and creamy thighs. 

Bill lets it twitch unfulfilled as he bends down and kisses Holden’s bare shoulder. 

“Bill …” Holden whispers, impatiently, his fingers knotting above his head. 

Bill takes him by the wrist to extricate his locked fists, and pulls his forearm open once more. The cascade of kisses begins again, starting from the peak of his shoulder and winding down the hardening resistance of his bicep. 

Bill opens his eyes to observe Holden’s stricken, motionless stare as the skin grows coarse beneath his mouth. He can feel each individual scar, the flesh healed with time but the wounds of the past indifferent to the idea that even a decade could erase the bone-deep damage. 

“Bill-” Holden says, and this time, it’s guttural with horrified resistance. 

He begins to pull away, but the effort is unsustained and easily quashed by Bill’s firm grasp on his elbow and wrist. 

“Shh.” Bill murmurs against his marred wrist. He plants kisses over the layered scars and into the heel of his hand. “It’s been awhile since someone touched you like this, hasn’t it?”

Holden blinks, his jaw locking against a quiver. He nods. 

“Too long.” Bill says, guiding Holden’s fist into an open palm, and kissing at the horizontal crease. “You deserve this, Holden. Every part of it.”

Fresh tears well in Holden’s eyes, and he squeezes them shut as Bill’s kisses move along the insides of his fingers, back and forth until they reach the tips.

Bill licks Holden’s index before taking it into his mouth. His skin tastes clean and sweet, and the pad of his fingertip bucks pleasantly against the roof of Bill’s mouth. 

Holden moans aloud, expression shifting from tearful to aroused in a matter of seconds. His lips dangle open as Bill sucks off the index, and moves to the middle finger. 

He tastes each one in turn, lapping at the knuckles and neat nails before drawing them into the hot suction of his mouth, all the while watching Holden’s fleeting resistance crumble. When his lips slide off Holden’s pinky finger, he can’t hold himself back any longer. 

Retrieving the oil from the nightstand, Bill pours a liberal amount across his fingers, and guides Holden’s knees up to his chest. He applies a gentle touch, smearing the oil in light, swirling strokes along the warm, soft cleft. Holden’s puckered, pink little hole is eagerly exposed with his knees crowded to his chest, and Bill watches it quiver and respond to his slightest caress with raw, insatiable hunger gnawing up through his belly. 

“Jesus …” He whispers, entranced. 

Holden shivers, his back arching but his entire musculature straining to keep himself still and open. With his mouth pinched shut against bubbling whimpers, his squinted, pleading gaze silently communicates a need that matches the fire burning in Bill’s own belly. 

Bill bolsters his caress, focusing on the taut opening. Rubbing his fingertips in a firm circle, he gauges every shudder and clench until the taut rim relaxes, and he urges his index forward. 

Holden’s eyelashes flutter, intoxicated whites flashing as his dilated pupils roll back beneath the immense pleasure of Bill’s finger breaching him. His mouth sinks open in a strangled noise of high-pitched shock and arousal. 

“Oh God …” He moans, crescendoing into a whined cry, “Bill!”

His toes curl sharply, and his feet cycle against empty air as Bill’s finger sinks down to the knuckle inside the velvet soft, damp clutch of his hole. 

Bill leans closer between Holden’s raised, twitching legs, and presses a kiss to the inside of his knee. 

“That’s it.” He murmurs, petting Holden’s thigh, “Relax, darling.”

Holden’s eyes slip open, and his eyes are glazed and wild with crushing need. He urges up against Bill’s hand, rasping out a plea, “Oh, Bill, please, don’t stop.”

“I’m not going to, trust me.” Bill replies, biting back a smile. He pumps his hand faster as Holden’s body goes all soft and pliant to his touch. “I’m going to fuck you until you until you can’t think straight.”

“I already can’t … Oh God-” Holden moans, his back snapping taut at the brush of Bill’s fingers against that sweet, swollen spot deep inside him. 

Bill withdraws his hand long enough to pair a second finger with the first. He forms a slight hook with the two of them when they go back in, and the angle is just enough to have Holden quaking and writhing in pleasured agony, his cock twitching out a pearly stream of pre-orgasmic juices. 

“Please, oh please …” He moans, bucking beneath Bill’s persistent ministrations. 

Bill pumps his hand a bit harder, enjoying watching Holden’s practiced, reserved facade fracturing away into desperation. 

“Bill, please-

“Please what?” Bill asks, leaning closer to watch the humiliated need bloom in deep pink across Holden’s cheeks. 

Holden frowns up at him. “I want … I want-”

“You want my cock.” Bill murmurs, “Say it.”

“I … I want your cock.”

Bill smothers a groan in the back of his throat as Holden chokes out the confession. Withdrawing his fingers, he adds a little more oil to his palm, and strokes it down his cock before guiding the swollen tip to Holden’s pink, yielding hole. He applies light pressure that’s just enough to have his cockhead slipping past the slack rim and into the hot clutches of Holden’s body. 

Barely an inch inside, the bliss of it is devastating. Both of them are crying out in satisfaction as Bill leans forward to press his forehead against Holden’s. He tries to steady himself with a few deep breaths, but his hips are canting forward, eager and unbridled, drawn into the velvet heat of Holden taking him in slowly. 

Holden wraps his arms around Bill’s neck, hanging on as if for his life. His eyes are squeezed shut, his mouth dropping open and shut in gasps of pleasure. His legs curl against Bill’s ribs, heels taut against the base of his spine. When Bill sinks all the way down and his cock is buried to the hilt, it’s like their flesh has fused into one and he can’t remember where he ends nor where Holden begins. 

“Bill … Bill-” Holden whispers, frantically, his fingers stroking jaggedly at Bill’s cheek. 

Bill opens his eyes, and falls into the blue of Holden’s gaze like an endless, placid pool. 

“I love you.” Holden chokes out, breathlessly, almost inaudible. 

“What?” Bill murmurs, delirious, not certain he’d heard the admission correctly. 

Holden tips his head back, and moans louder as Bill thrusts against him. “Oh God, I love you. I love you.”

Bill kisses him hard, too overwhelmed to conjure a reply. He curls closer so that there’s barely enough room for his hips to thrust, but just the right space for them to grind in heated, protracted yearning while the borders of their bones keep blurring. 

The rest of the world sinks away into the horizon, far away and small; all of Papermill, their fraught and painful histories, the investigation, Gunn - even God Himself. 


	19. harbingers of the end times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the truth about Holden's past comes fully to light, the evidence acquired from Gunn's home threatens to unearth other secrets.

“Do you have to leave soon?” Holden whispers, breaking the enduring silence. 

Bill is curled up behind him, arms wrapped securely across Holden’s chest. They haven’t moved for what must have been half an hour. Holden feels like he’s at long last floating back down to earth, into reality. 

“I told Nancy I might not be back tonight.” 

Holden closes his eyes. Fresh guilt pierces the warmth in his chest. 

Bill sighs wearily against his ear. “I don’t want to see her right now, Holden.”

“Bill-” Holden begins, pulling out of the embrace and sitting upright. 

“I don’t want to talk about it either.”

Holden gazes down at the strain of regret and yearning in Bill’s eyes, that same conflict warring in his mind. They’ve both been unfaithful to their vows, but he can’t lash himself with his own self-hatred any longer; not after the way Bill touched him, cared for his body in a way it's been vacant of for years. 

“Can we just have this?” Bill asks, rubbing a hand over Holden’s bare thigh. “Just tonight. Please.”

“And what about the nights after this one?” 

“We’ll figure it out.”

“By running away together?” 

“Do you want to?” Bill asks, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

Holden sighs, and crawls off the bed. Pulling Gunn’s ledgers from the suitcase, he sits back down on the sheets Indian-style, and flips through the carefully balanced pages. 

“You really think this could be the end of it?” He asks. 

Bill sits up behind him, and puts his arm around Holden’s neck. His breath is warm at the shell of Holden’s ear as he murmurs, “We’ll have to show it to Wendy to see if she agrees, but yeah. From what I know about fraudulent bank accounting, we’ve got him dead to rights.”

“What do you think is in this one?” Holden asks, exchanging the ledger for the padlocked notebook. 

“Blackmail. A list of names and favors. We probably shouldn’t open it, avoid any sign of evidence tampering.”

“Right.” Holden mutters, setting it aside. “I can’t believe it’s going to be over.”

“It is. And it’s all going to be worth it.” 

When Holden doesn’t immediately agree, Bill softly grasps his chin and turns his face to him. 

“What’s going on? Did something else happen at that party last night?” 

Holden licks his lips, nervously. “No, I was just … I was reminded-”

“Of what?”

Holden glances down at his scarred forearm, and runs his fingertips across the familiar scoring. “Of what I used to be. What I am.”

“Which is …?”

“Bill, I convinced Henry Brudos that it was in his best interest - and in the best interest of the town - to sell the mill to Gunn. He’s not a bad person. He’s not even a mean person. He’s just living in a changed world that he doesn’t understand anymore, that he doesn’t know how to navigate. His way of doing things is over because he’s old, and sick, and his power has been stripped from him by his family.”

“You and I both know that sale is never going through.”

“I don’t care. He saw me for what I really am. A con man, just in different clothing than I was ten years ago.”

Bill shifts to Holden’s side so that he can look him in the eyes. “What are you talking about?”

Holden stares at the floral print in the bedspread for a long moment before pressing his eyes shut. Nausea roils in his gut, the truth stinging like bile at the back of his throat. 

“I told you that my adoptive parents took me from the orphanage when I was fifteen …” 

“Yeah.” 

“They were well-to-do. They weren’t incredibly wealthy, but they had money; and my father was crushed with this survivor’s guilt. Both of his sons died in the war, and he always felt like he should have died in their place. His intentions with me were a paradox - he wanted to replace his sons, but he also wanted to assuage his own guilt by helping someone less fortunate. I was this …  _ fixture  _ in their lives. Not a child, but a  _ thing _ , hinged on my own tragedy, never able to measure up to the idolized memory of his biological children. His sons were a shadow over the house, never seen but always lingering, dictating every part of our lives. I was never good enough - but that was the point of my existence. I was a charity project.” 

Bill’s hand circles his back gently, feeling the shiver that runs through him. Holden swipes at the corner of his eye where tears are already building. 

“That’s when it started.” Holden murmurs, his view of his scarred arms swimming and fuzzy. “I wanted out of my life, my body. I wanted to be someone else. Someone less broken, someone who was loved for myself not the things I represented or was supposed to be. They were both disappointed when I left at eighteen and said I was going back to New York. My father wanted me to enroll in school, at least do something with the life he had given me. It was the last of his charity that I ever took. I signed up for classes, but I realized very quickly that I had no interest in accounting. I had pretty much dropped out, and was working a few odd jobs and living in a boarding house when I met him …”

“Who?” 

Holden blinks away the sting of tears, and looks up to meet Bill’s stoic gaze. He swallows hard. 

“Ed. Ed Kemper.”

Bill’s frown deepens, but he waits for Holden to elaborate. 

“He lived in the room across the hall from me. He was very secretive and strange, but we slowly came to be friends. I knew that he was into drugs and alcohol, but he didn’t work any job that I knew of that could afford him his vices. Even so, I was … drawn to him. He had this-”

“What?”

“Charisma.” Holden says, shaking his head. “He was this big, grotesque person. Hands the size of a catcher’s mitt. Not incredibly handsome. But when he spoke, his voice was soft and cultured. People listened when he talked, and I was envious. He seemed like he understood and liked himself. He never regretted anything that he did; but it didn’t take me long to figure out that he was a criminal and liar to the bone.”

Bill’s hand has gone still against Holden’s back. 

Holden draws in a calming breath, wishing it would start moving again to at least ground him to this moment, far away from the memories of the past spilling up his throat. 

He forces himself to continue, “Ed was a con man. A very good one. When he took me on as his partner, it started out small. Our original ploy was a two-man job. We would acquire some knock-off jewelry at a cheap price, and then we would go to a speakeasy or some other place with lots of rich folks around. I would flaunt the piece, elaborating on it’s value. When I’d snagged the target, they usually wouldn’t believe me. I was nineteen years old by this point, but still small and baby-faced. This is when Ed would arrive with his cultured speak and some type of fake name and occupation that would legitimize himself in their eyes. He would back up my claims, and explain how much the piece of jewelry was worth. I would say I was in need of quick cash, and I would take whatever he could give me. He would offer me some small amount. The target would fall for it, not wanting to miss out, and fork over twice what Ed was offering.”

“That’s smart.” Bill murmurs. His chin is turned down as he processes each confession.

Holden nods. “It was. And it worked. We made a lot of money that way, but it was never enough for Ed. He could pretend to be the nicest, gentlest person you could ever meet, but underneath, he had this darkness, this … bloodlust he couldn’t slake.”

Bill’s gaze springs up from the bed sheets again. “Bloodlust?”

“He liked to hurt people.”

Bill’s jaw moves from side to side for a moment before his nostrils flare with an uneasy breath. “Including you?”

Holden glances away, his eyes stinging again. He nods his head. 

Bill falls silent, but Holden can sense his horror and steeping rage. 

He sucks in a deep breath, trying to fortify his resolve, but his voice trembles as he says, “I was an easy target for him. It didn't take long before he had me hooked on the same drugs that he liked to take, and dependent on him for money to get it. And when I was high, he could get what he really wanted. I already liked to cut myself so if he wanted to watch me do it, there was no victim, right? I think that was his rationalization initially, but it only stayed that way for a few months before he set aside the last of his morals; and I was … I was weak enough to let him-”

Bill pulls Holden into his arms as his voice crumples. Holden can feel his hands shaking, but the truth of his past is enough to strike anyone into shocked silence. He presses his cheek to Bill’s chest for a long moment, swallowing back the thickening knot of tears in the back of his throat until he can breathe again. 

When he pulls back, Bill strokes the tears from his cheeks. 

“Wait, there’s more-” Holden whispers. 

“Holden, you don’t have to tell me all this if you don’t want to.” Bill says, fiercely, cradling his damp cheeks in his hands. “Whatever happened, it’s not going to change my mind.”

“Well it should!” Holden rasps out, “It didn’t end there - with me. It just kept getting worse and worse, and I was feeding into him, encouraging him. The next thing I knew, we were conning our way into rich people’s houses, stealing from them in the middle of the night, until one day, he made a mistake. Someone was home. The guy came out with a shotgun, and Ed stabbed him with a kitchen knife. We ran out with nothing, but Ed was exhilarated; and I was so terrified, I swore to him that what we were doing was over. I was leaving, but-”

Bill’s jaw hardens. His eyes are glistening. “He wouldn’t let you?”

Holden shakes his head. “No. It was a thrill for him. Over the next few months, he let it happen again and again. Someone was home, he had to defend us by attacking them. It kept escalating until one night, he picked a place where a group of young, rich socialites lived. It went all night long. He tied them up, did horrible things. I begged him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen. Finally, he got mad, and put me on the bed with two of the boys, undressed me. I realized I had become just another victim to him, or maybe I was all along-”

“Jesus.” Bill mutters, his cheeks blanching. 

“When I woke up the next morning, I was covered in their blood. He was gone. I got out the restraints, and called the police. When they arrived, they took me for one of the socialites, and I didn’t try to correct them. They took me to a Catholic hospital where I woke up the next morning to a priest praying over me. I told him everything that happened, and he offered me a place to stay until I could get back on my feet. I accepted because I didn’t want to go back to my parents. It was the most kindness and compassion that anyone had shown to me in years, this light in the darkness. I looked up to Heaven, and saw a future for myself for the first time.”

“What about Ed? Did they catch him?” 

“No.” Holden shakes his head, “I heard a few years later that he killed himself out in California, but I’m not sure if that story is true or not. For all I know, he could still be out there somewhere, breaking into homes in the middle of the night …. I should have stopped him when I had the chance, but I was …”

“You were a victim.” Bill says, pulling Holden back into his arms. “He used you, and hurt you, Holden. None of it was your choice.”

Holden closes his eyes, and leans into Bill’s chest. He wants to believe what Bill is saying, but he has dragged the guilt around with him for nearly a decade like a cross to bear. He can’t let it go now; it’s his faithful companion. 

“I understand if this makes you look at me differently, but I needed you to know.” He whispers. 

Bill clutches his cheek, and guides Holden back so that he can look into his eyes. “Of course it does. But it doesn’t change the fact that I love you.”

“How can you say that?”

“Holden, I’ve done my fair share of deceiving and hurting people.” Bill says, his gaze focused on the stroke of his thumb meeting the tears slipping from the corners of Holden’s eyes. “I’ve done terrible, unforgivable things. In the war and working for the BOI, I’ve killed people. Federally sanctioned murder - but still, I pulled the trigger. Was it always in the name of justice? Yeah, most of the time, but not every time. I have things in my head that I’m never going to be able to get rid of, but you know what? You make me feel like I should open my eyes in the morning. Your past doesn’t change that.”

Holden gingerly extracts his chin from Bill’s grasp, and rubs both hands over his face to smear away the lingering tears. They’re both silent for several moments until he turns a blank stare to his white collar discarded on the nightstand. 

“My God, Bill.” He whispers, “What are we going to do?”

^^^

Bill wakes the next morning before Holden. 

Faint morning light falls past the curtains, across Holden’s peaceful expression subdued by slumber. The blankets are pulled to his chest, but his left arm is exposed and stretched out toward Bill’s side of the bed. 

Rolling onto his side, Bill studies Holden’s face with dread coiling in his gut. Not over Holden’s honesty, but the lack of his own. All of Holden’s scars are bare while Bill still feebly covers his own, desperate to make himself into someone capable of healing Holden’s wounds when truly, he can’t even heal his own. 

He tentatively extends his fingertips to Holden’s mangled wrist. 

Holden jolts awake, as if the usually concealed skin is hyper-aware and tender. His expression is startled and defensive until he sees Bill propping himself up on his elbow. 

“Oh.” He whispers, drawing his arm against his chest. “You’re still here.”

“Yeah.” Bill says, scooting closer so that he can drop a kiss on Holden’s forehead. “I should get going. I’m going to drop by my house for a change of clothes, and then get those ledgers to Wendy.” 

“Okay.” Holden murmurs, “Do you want something to eat? Coffee?”

“No, I’ll be okay. You stay here and rest. You’ve had a long couple of days.” 

Holden nods, not meeting Bill’s gaze. 

Bill bites back a sigh. He should be used to this seesaw of emotional vulnerability with Holden by now. When he exposes too much of himself, his first reaction is to recoil, and Bill can’t blame him - not after the horrifying truth Holden confessed to last night. This time, he’s more concerned than frustrated. 

“Are you going to be okay if I leave you here?” He asks. 

“What do you mean?” Holden’s eyes are on him now, glimmering and guarded. 

“You know what I mean.” 

Their eyes lock, a silent tug of war from either ends of a cruel whip. 

Finally, Holden nods. 

“Promise me.” Bill says, taking Holden by the cheek and bending to kiss him softly on the mouth. “You’ve been through enough the past few days.”

“Yes.” Holden whispers, raggedly. “I promise.” 

Bill forces himself to retreat from the bed. 

He takes a quick shower before putting on his clothes from last night, and going back into the bedroom. Holden is drifting back to sleep when he leans over the bed to leave a pattern of kisses on his cheek and mouth. 

Holden hums softly, turning his lips up to the fleeting caress.

“I’ll call you a little later, let you know what Wendy says, okay?” Bill says. 

“Okay.” Holden mutters, not opening his eyes. As Bill turns to leave, he whispers, almost inaudibly, “I love you.”

Bill stops in the doorway, pinching the crown of his hat between his thumb and forefinger as giddy, unquelled warmth and repressed guilt clash between his ribs. “I love you, too.”

He gathers the ledgers and notebook from the nightstand, and leaves the parsonage.

At seven o’clock in the morning, the streets of Papermill are almost deserted. Most of the shops won’t be opening for another hour. It’s like a ghost town with the unlit street lamps and the meager sunlight reaching past the clouds to cast the world in dull, gray light. 

When Bill arrives home, Nancy is in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Wearing her apron and holding a spatula in her hand, she pokes her head around the doorway of the kitchen when she hears the front door opening. 

“Oh, you’re back.”

“Yeah, we had to spend the night in Arlington.” Bill says, briskly uttering the lie without looking her in the eyes. He busies himself hanging his coat and hat by the door. 

“How did it go?”

“Good. I think we got what we needed.” Bill says, tucking the ledgers under his arm. “I can’t stick around. I need to get back over to headquarters.” 

“It’s okay. I understand.”

He nods, his stomach aching. 

Her eyes are sad, yet intuitive when she asks, “Is everything okay?”

“Yep.” He mutters, dipping his head as he shuffles down the hall to the bedroom. 

He pulls the door shut behind him, and drops the ledgers on the bed with a sigh. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and wants to drive his knuckles through the glass, into the weak man on the other side. 

It’s easy enough to let himself get carried away in Holden’s company, dreaming of escaping the narrow little box of his life, but the world has never once been so kind to him. The last time he tried to secretly leave, his unhappiness cost people their lives. If only he had told Nancy long ago, he might already be free. Perhaps she would hate him, but they would both be free. 

After getting dressed for work, Bill tries to mitigate his guilt by helping Nancy rouse Brian from bed. The boy looks shocked to see him. 

“Come on, Nancy has pancakes.” Bill says, pulling the sheets back from Brian’s small shoulders. 

“I had a weird dream.” Brian says, blinking up at him with unnerving, dark eyes. 

“You did?”

“About you and my dad.” 

Bill frowns, that knot in his stomach growing denser. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Brian sits up, and rubs the sleep from his eyes. “In my old house. He kissed you the way he kisses Mama.”

“What? That’s, um …” Bill chokes out, his spine rippling with cold, needling wash of terror. 

Brian blinks up at him, nonplussed. He shrugs. “I have a lot of weird dreams like that.”

“You do, huh? Maybe you should just keep that one to yourself.”

“Okay.” 

Bill sits on the edge of the mattress, feeling faint with nausea as Brian climbs out of bed, and scampers out of the room. When he gathers himself and goes out into the kitchen to kiss Nancy goodbye, the boy is reverted to his usually silent self, hunched over his pancakes with a distant look in his eyes. 

On the drive to D.C., Bill smokes a cigarette feverishly. 

All the truth and lies crawl in his belly like fire ants, itching to burst free. He doesn’t need an eight year old kid to remind him that he can’t conceal the past forever. The ledgers on the passenger’s seat beside him are a harbinger of the end times - not of this world, but of his feeble control over it. 

He can’t stop thinking about Holden whispering:  _ What are we going to do?  _ He didn’t have a good answer last night. Maybe he never will. 

  
  


^^^

Wendy is shocked but pleased with the reveal of the ledgers and the blackmail book. She flips through the pages with the same mounting excitement that Bill had experienced, her fingers trembling along the discrepancies between the two records. 

“This is it.” She says, “We have to take this to the DOJ.”

“And this?” Bill remarks, putting his hand on the padlocked notebook. “I think we should open it. See who we should avoid.”

Wendy’s eyes narrow. “I’m not so sure. It could be seen as evidence tampering.”

“I don’t want to hand it over to someone we can’t trust.”

“Neither do I.” She says, then clasps her hands together and leans forward, lowering her voice, “Bill, I have to ask - is your name going to be in there?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. It could be.” Bill says, “Paul Bateson worked for Gunn, but our business was always a secret. It could have been added after Paul disappeared, or maybe not … I’m not sure.”

Wendy nods, her mouth pursing thoughtfully. “Okay. It could be a strong piece of evidence, or it could sink the investigation.” 

“Father Ford’s name is probably in there, too. He’s protected by us because it was done in an undercover capacity …”

“Are you suggesting we spin the same lie about you?”

“Not for any selfish reasons. Look, I know I’ve messed up. If I lose my job over this, it would be maybe the lightest sentence I deserve; but I can’t let my mistakes destroy how hard we’ve worked to bring Gunn down. He deserves to be in prison.”

Wendy crosses her arms tightly, and glances away. Her jaw is taut with frustration. 

“You said you were willing to bring him down no matter the cost.” Bill adds, softly. 

“And my morals? That’s the cost?” She asks, sharply. 

Bill doesn’t have a good answer. They sit quietly opposed to one another with Wendy’s desk and the book between them until she rises to her feet with a resigned inhale. 

“All right.” She says, “Let’s go over and have a talk with Nash.”

“What did he have to say about Boris last night?”

“They’ve brought him in along with the Customs officer who arranged the shipment and concealment of the drugs. As of last night, neither of them were talking, but perhaps a night in holding changed their attitudes.”

“It won’t be long before Gunn finds out he’s been arrested.”

“No.” Wendy says, furling her coat over her shoulders and grabbing the ledgers, “That’s why we have to move on this quickly.” 

It’s a short walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Customs Service headquarters, but when they arrive, Bill is sweating beneath his wool coat. His palms are clammy with nerves as they cross the bustling lobby to the front desk. 

“Excuse me, we’re here to see Assistant Area Port Director Nash.” Wendy says to the secretary. 

The woman is cradling a telephone to her ear, and jotting down a note in rapid short-hand. She holds up a finger to Wendy, and finishes the call with a few pleasantries. When she hangs up, she turns her attention to them, “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but he’s going to want to see us. Agents Carr and Tench from the BOI.”

“I see. One moment.” The secretary picks up the telephone again to ring up to Nash’s office. “Bureau of Investigation Agents Carr and Tench to see you, sir … Mm-hm. Yes. Yes, sir. Right away.” She hangs up again, and smiles sweetly at them, “You can go right up.”

“Thank you.” Wendy says, already briskly walking toward the elevator. 

Bill follows at a slower pace, staring apprehensively at the black book in her arms. Riding up the elevator, getting closer to Nash and this investigation slipping beyond the confines of Wendy’s office, he wonders if he should have burned it. 

When they reach Nash’s office, the door is closed. Wendy knocks, and Nash opens the door with a somber expression on his face. 

“Come in.” He says, motioning them inside. 

They step inside, but both halt when they see an older gentleman sitting in the chair across from Nash’s desk. He’s dressed impeccably in a black suit, and round, wire-rimmed glasses accentuate his large, drooping eyes. 

“Agents Tench and Carr, I’d like you to meet my boss, Area Port Director Amos Garth.” Nash says, waving a casual hand between them. 

Bill forces his mouth to shut, and steps forward to extend his hand. “Sir, good to meet you.”

“My pleasure.” Garth says, rising to his feet to return the handshake. “I’m happy to meet the man who delivered me Boris Brudos.”

“Well, uh, it wasn’t just me, sir.” Bill says, nodding Wendy forward, “I’m actually the sidekick. This is my SAC, Wendy Carr.”

Garth sizes Wendy up with an instinctively critical gaze, but he’s cultured enough not to make any crude remarks. He shakes her hand, offering neither the warmth nor praise he’d directed at Bill. 

Nash clears his throat. “I’m glad you came when you did. I was just about to call you to arrange a meeting exactly like this one. Amos is up to date on our operations as of right now, and we’re planning to move forward with a deal for Mr. Brudos to get him talking.”

“A deal?” Wendy asks, “What kind of deal?”

“Reduced sentencing.” Garth says, “He’ll flip if he knows what’s good for him.”

“And you intend to sentence Gunn to the full extent of the law?” Bill asks. 

“We intend to sentence whomever Brudos is working for. You and Nash seem confident it’s Gunn, but we’ll move forward once we get it in writing.” Garth replies. 

“This might help.” Wendy says, turning to drop the two ledgers down on Nash’s desk. Bill notices that she’s tucked the small, black book into her coat pocket. 

“What’s this?” Nash asks. 

“Gunn’s financials. The cooked books and the real ones. I can guarantee you, his profits from the drug smuggling - and several other illegal endeavors - are in there.” 

“How did you get these?” Nash asks, bewildered, as he flips open the first ledger. 

“Our CI, Father Holden Ford. They came directly from Gunn’s safe.”

“And you’re telling me that the three of you cooked up this little undercover operation all by yourselves?” Garth asks, walking over to the desk to get a look at the ledgers from behind Nash’s shoulder. 

“Yes. We’re bringing these to you as a courtesy, though.” Wendy says, “We intend to take this information to the DOJ. Gunn is guilty of more crimes than just drug smuggling and bribing port officers.” 

“Are they going to guarantee that they’ll share evidence?” Garth asks, distrustfully. “This was our arrest first.” 

“All due respect, sir, but the investigation belongs to my office.” Wendy says, archly. 

“Weren’t you the ones who said you didn’t care who got the collar?” Nash interjects. 

“All right, all right.” Bill says, holding up his hands before Wendy can erupt with righteous fervor. “We get where you’re coming from, but we don’t just want to see this guy end up with the minimum sentence and a fine that he can easily pay. He’s got so many people in his pocket that bribing a judge for a lower sentence isn’t going to be a problem.”

Garth sighs through his nose. “Fine. But let us request the liaison with the DOJ. That way we can at least control the chain of evidence.” 

“Let me know when you do that.” Wendy says, retrieving the ledgers from the desk. 

“What are you doing?” Nash asks. 

“I’ll hold onto these until the DOJ has officially opened an inquiry. Right now, they’re my evidence. You’ve got your man in holding. See what he turns up.”

“You’ve got some real brass, don’t you, lady?” Garth says, poising his hands on his hips. 

“It’s Agent.” Wendy says, casting him a saccharine smile. “Special Agent in Charge.”

She brushes past Bill with the ledgers clutched to her chest. Bill casts the two men an apologetic smile, but quickly follows Wendy out the door. Lengthening his strides, he finds her fuming by the elevator. 

“We knew this could happen.” He says, keeping his voice down. “Nash couldn’t hold off his superiors forever.” 

“And how do we know that Garth isn’t in that little black book.” Wendy hisses under her breath, jabbing at the elevator button. 

“Yeah. Speaking of which-”

“I was uncertain whether we should enter it into evidence with them. Now I’m sure.” 

“What are you going to do with it?” 

Wendy’s shakes her head, “I don’t know.”

“Agents, wait!” Nash’s voice draws their attention from the flickering elevator indicator. He hurries down the corridor to where they’re standing, his brow knotted with a worried frown. “Wendy, I’m sorry. Once we brought Boris in, I had to let Garth in on the investigation.”

“Oh, it’s not your fault, Boyd.” She says, her tone softening, “I shouldn’t have walked out like that, but I’ve put so much into this case. I can’t see Gunn walk away with a twelve-month sentence and a fine for the drugs.”

“I know.” Nash says, ducking his head. “I’ll make the connection with the DOJ myself. I know a few guys over there who can fast track the paperwork.”

“Great.” Wendy nods, “I appreciate it.”

“You should get those ledgers over to them right away.” Nash says, “Boris is gonna roll, and when he does …”

“All hell is gonna break loose.” Bill mutters.

Nash nods, worriedly. “I hope Father Ford is in a safe place. I’ve seen what men like Gunn are capable of when they’ve been betrayed.”

“We’re looking out for him.” Bill assures. 

“All right. I’ll call you tomorrow then, Wendy.”

“Yes, please do.”

They all shake hands, and part ways. 

Once they’re back at the BOI headquarters, they return to Wendy’s office with afternoon cups of coffee cooling on her desk. 

Wendy puts the locked black notebook in front of her, and draws in a deep breath. 

“What is it?” Bill asks. 

“We need to know.” 

“Who’s in it?” 

“Yes.” Wendy says, leaning forward to snatch her letter opener from the edge of her desk. 

She uses the pointed tip to break open the padlock, and slowly lifts the cover. 

Bill gets up to sidle up behind her. Bracing his hand against the back of her chair, he leans forward to read the names and incriminating details on the page. 

The book is alphabetized and written in neat cursive with black ink that absorbs into the paper in varying stages of freshness. Scandals of every nature cascade down the pages - love affairs and the children born from them, bribes, crimes swept under the rug, addictions to opiates and alcohol, prostitutes, and underage victims. Bill doesn’t recognize every name, but there’s at least a hundred people in this book. People in the government and positions of power that are supposed to be trustworthy members of the community. 

Wendy flips into the Cs, and her fingers freeze. 

Bill glimpses it just before she slams the books shut:  _ BOI Agent Wendy Carr - homosexual affair with Kay Manz.  _

He takes a sharp step back from her chair, wondering if he should pretend that he hadn’t seen the scandalous phrase. Then another thought hits him like eviscerating ice through the middle. 

Grabbing the book from her hands, he flips through the pages with trembling fingers until he gets to the Fs.  _ Farmer, Fiori, Flynn, Ford.  _

_ Father Holden Ford. Heroin addiction. Homosexual affair with BOI Agent Bill Tench.  _

“Fuck.” 

“What is it?” Wendy demands, her face pale and stricken with the same horror that he’s experiencing. 

“Fuck. Fuck, no.” Bill mutters, tearing through the pages to the T’s, knowing what he’ll find but dreading laying eyes on it. 

“What does it say?” Wendy presses, rising to her feet. 

He stands still, feeling his stomach sinking fast into his knees, and his stomach curdling with burning nausea. 

_ Bill Tench. Alcohol addiction. Homosexual affair with Papermill, VA priest Holden Ford.  _

Bill slowly looks up to meet Wendy’s gaze. She doesn’t look as shocked as he’d hoped, only backed into the very same corner that he is. 

Neither of them speak for a long moment. 

Finally Wendy holds out her hand. “Give it to me.”

“What … what are you going to do with it?” He whispers. 

Her voice barely holds a tremor below the steely defiance. “I’m going to keep it somewhere safe. Then we’re going to use it to bring that bastard down.”

^^^

The long corridor outside Deputy Assistant Attorney General Warren Combs’ office is subdued except for the distant ring of telephones. The atmosphere here in the Department of Justice wing of the building is one of austere authority as opposed to the investigative urgency of the BOI. 

Bill and Wendy share a bench just a few feet from the closed office door. There’s no windows in the corridor, and a potted plant in the corner withers from lack of sunlight. The air is thick and faintly tinged with smoke, compounded by Bill’s own cigarette bleeding nicotine into his constricting lungs. 

He shifts a nervous glance at Wendy who is sitting up straight and stock still on the bench with her gaze focused ahead. The culmination of months of investigation is contained in the briefcase on her lap. 

“I don’t know about this.” He says, low. 

“Just take a breath. I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you? What happens when we both get burned at the stake?”

She doesn’t have a chance to rebut his apprehension as the door of Combs’ office swings open. 

The attorney is a portly but refined gentleman in a tailored, black suit and gold-rimmed glasses. His salt-and-pepper hair is parted far to the left and fastidiously slicked back. 

“Agents Tench and Carr?”

“Yes, sir.” Bill says, rising to his feet. 

“Come in.” Combs says, disappearing back into the office. 

Wendy’s knuckles are blanched around the handle of the briefcase as she strides past Bill’s reluctant gait. 

Shoving down the nausea roiling in his gut, Bill follows her into the attorney’s office. This room is afforded two windows with a view of Pennsylvania Avenue and the connecting streets. A bookshelf is filled with legal volumes while a wall of prestigious commendations oppose Combs’ desk. 

“Please, take a seat.” Combs says, as he presses his pipe to his mouth, and strikes a match. 

They both sit in the chairs opposite his desk.

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Wendy says, “As I said over the phone, this investigation has become a matter requiring some delicacy.”

“I’ve read the report Nash sent over from the Customs Agency.” Combs says. A plume of smoke all but obscures his face as he puffs on the pipe, and takes it from his mouth. “We’ve agreed to open an investigation based on Boris Brudos’ testimony, but you know how these things go, Agent Carr. The wheels of justice sometimes turn slowly.”

“That’s why I’m here. To offer some grease.” Wendy says, sliding the briefcase onto the desk. “This is all of our evidence.”

Combs sets his pipe aside as Wendy lifts the lid of the briefcase, and takes out their investigation notes, photographs, and the ledgers one at a time. 

“These are of particular interest.” Wendy adds, handing him the ledgers. 

Combs opens the first ledger, and skims through it. 

“Everything appears in order, doesn’t it?” Wendy asks. 

“At first glance, yes.”

“Gunn’s accountant, Miles Forster, has mastered the art of cooking these books. Take a look at this one.” Wendy motions to the second ledger. 

Combs frowns as he compares the two books. Bill can see the alarm registering on his face, mounting realization matching his own horror when he’d first seen the delicately balanced financials. 

“How did you acquire these?” Combs asks, looking up sharply from the books. 

“An undercover operative.”

“Agent Carr, now isn’t really the time to conceal your methods.”

“Agent Tench and I are trying to maintain the operative’s cover. He’s an integral member of the community, and if he simply disappeared into protective custody before Gunn is arrested, he could be in grave danger of being discovered.”

“All the more reason to put him into protective custody.”

“He’d have to agree to protective custody first.” Bill remarks. 

“What does that mean?” Combs asks. 

“Like Agent Carr said, he’s a part of the community. I don’t see him leaving Papermill so easily.”

“Even for his own good?”

Bill shrugs. 

“I need to know who this operative is. I need to question him.” Combs says, “The first thing we must do in an investigation of this sort is legitimize the source of information.”

“I understand, and that’s why I wanted this meeting to be in person.” Wendy says. 

Bill’s chest seizes as she takes the blackmail book from the briefcase. He glances away, scratching apprehensively at the back of his neck until it burns. He and Wendy had argued about whether or not to destroy it. She felt it was too valuable, he felt it was too dangerous; she won out in the end, but in this moment, his feet are ice cold. 

“I need to know that this investigation doesn’t end right here.” Wendy says, flipping absently through the pages. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Combs asks, scowling. 

“Agent Tench tried to have Mayor Gunn investigated nearly two years ago. The inquiry was quashed from the inside.”

“What are you accusing me of?”

“Nothing.” Wendy says, laying the book open and sliding it to Combs. “This book contains all the secrets of Papermill, and a lot of D.C. too. Gunn is like a cancer, and as you can see, he’s infiltrated not only the BOI, but your office as well.”

Combs reads over the incriminating words, dread blanching his cheeks. “Jesus.”

“Yes.” Wendy murmurs. 

Combs rubs a hand over his forehead, disrupting the oiled styling of his hair. He flips haphazardly through the pages, shock mounting with each new name he recognizes. Bill wants to throw up on the carpet as he gets dangerously close to the T’s. 

“Don’t take this as a threat, but a peace offering.” Wendy says, “There are a lot of names in that book. Agents in this building, judges, members of Congress, those in the private sector also. There’s enough dynamite in those pages to destroy everyone, but it doesn’t have to.”

Combs looks up slowly to regard Wendy with a shaken gaze. “If any of this got out-”

“That’s why we need to move quickly. As you know, Nash arrested Boris Brudos three nights ago, and they’re in the process of making a deal with him for his testimony. Once that gets back to Gunn, he may start burning bridges.”

Combs nods, dragging his palm over his mouth and inhaling a steadying breath. “All right.”

“All right?” Bill echoes. 

“Yes. But as I said, we need to start with your undercover man.” Combs says, “Get his testimony on the record before Gunn can refute it. Can you bring him here?”

“Yes.” Wendy agrees, quickly. “I’d like to know who you plan on bringing into the investigation first.”

“People I can trust.” Combs assures, “This is going to go multi-department, though, Agent Carr. Once I have my accountants review these books and we start looking into Gunn’s financials, I’ll want to get Treasury involved, too. I’m looking at federal drug charges, bribery, fraud, tax evasion - task force worthy.”

Wendy barely contains her smile. “Good. He can’t pay off the entire federal justice system.”

“So … your undercover operative.” Combs says, lacing his hands together and leaning forward. 

“Father Holden Ford.” Wendy says.

“A priest? Really?”

“A civilian who probably shouldn’t have ever gotten involved.” Bill says, “But he’s the only reason we have what we do on Gunn. Somehow, he managed to earn the man’s trust.”

“Well, I can’t wait to meet with this undercover priest.” Combs says, “When can you get him here?”

“As soon as possible,” Wendy says, casting Bill a firm glance, “I’ll let you know when we can arrange a time.”

“Good. In the meanwhile, I’ll be putting together a group of my people, and contacting the Treasury Department.”

Wendy slips a card out of her pocket, and hands it over to Combs. “Call me directly.”

“Yes, I will. Thank you, Agent Carr. This is some incredible work.”

“Thank you. It’s long overdue.”

They all shake hands before Bill and Wendy leave Combs with the briefcase of evidence, aside from the blackmail book which Wendy tucks in her jacket pocket. 

At midday, the elevator carrying them back down to the BOI division is vacant except for the two of them. 

“You know the moment I pull Holden out of Papermill people are going to start asking questions.” Bill remarks, staring nervously at his feet.

“Hopefully we’ll move faster than that.”

“With the weight of four different federal justice departments on our backs?” 

“You heard Combs. He’s going to do everything he can.”

“Yeah, I hope it’s enough. Holden isn’t going to want to abandon St. Stephen’s and the people of our town for long.”

“It’s a sacrifice he’ll have to make.”

The doors of the elevator hiss open, and Wendy marches confidently down the corridor. She glances over her shoulder when he doesn’t match her stride, and slows down until he shuffles to join her in front of the window displaying downtown D.C. four stories below them, the dull roar of traffic is injected with the panicked scream of a fire engine racing past. 

“I’ll have to tell him about that book.” Bill says. 

“Yes, I think you should warn him.”

Bill rubs a hand over his jaw, trying to quell the nausea rising in his throat. 

“Bill, we’re doing the right thing. We have to know who is on our side. Even if that means employing a bit of the same blackmail that Gunn does.”

“What happened to your precious morals?” Bill asks, shooting her a narrowed glare. 

She crosses her arms, and lifts her chin defiantly. “We can’t stop all of crime. If we tried to go after every single person in that book, we would destroy people’s faith in the federal justice system. We would destroy a lot of good people in the process - including you and Holden.”

Bill scoffs, his mouth curling. “Wendy, I am  _ not  _ a good person. Neither of us are. I think we should stop pretending that we are.”

“So you’re telling me that you think we’re all on the same level as Gunn? I know what I’m capable of, what I’ve done, and the people I’ve hurt. I know I’m no saint, but Gunn? You know as well as I do the violence and pain he’s perpetrated with not a scrap of remorse, the things he’s-”

“Yes, Gunn deserves to go to jail.” Bill interrupts, holding up a hand. “You’re right. I’m just done trying to convince myself that I’m the hero in all of this. I’m not. I’m just a part of it like every other name on those pages, and once Gunn goes down, someone else is going to rise up to take his place. That’s the harsh truth of the world.”

“Well, I’m sorry you have such a pitiful view of justice, but I still believe in doing the right thing even if it doesn’t fit the traditional definition of the word.” Wendy says, her eyes wrinkling with hurt. “I have to believe I’ve done the right thing, Bill.”

“Just do me a favor. Once you’re done manipulating people and putting both of our lives and careers on the line with that book, burn it.” 

He brushes past her, barely catching the wounded flinch on her face. 

_ I need a cigarette,  _ He thinks. His veins itch, and his mind is a cacophonous roar.  _ Or two, or three. Fuck it. I need a goddamn drink.  _


	20. no remnants of sacrament

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill struggles to accept the reality of he and Holden's situation; Holden is cleaved in two as he turns his back on sacrament.

The day after Bill and Wendy opened the blackmail book, Wendy reports that she’s arranging for Holden to go into witness protection within the next few days, as soon as she can manage without arousing suspicion from their superiors who are as yet unaware of the undercover operation. Bill had always suspected this outcome would be a probable eventuality given Gunn’s power and influence, but Wendy’s announcement dictates a sickening expiry date on the course of their affair. 

Doing his best to hide the nauseated knot twisting in the pit of his stomach, Bill tells Wendy that he’ll handle the responsibility of telling Holden. He knows he should do it immediately. He should inform Holden with urgency of the acceleration in the investigation, the details of the blackmail book, and the precariousness of his situation if he remains in Papermill; but when he arrives home from work that evening, he can’t bring himself to pick up the telephone. 

Taking Holden to D.C., into the belly of the investigation, means two things: one, that Holden will learn about the book, and that it will destroy the last of his faith in himself. Two, that their days together are numbered. Once the investigation is over and Gunn is behind bars, their status as partners will disintegrate. What will he be to Holden, then? The man who destroyed his purity, his faith, his life? Despite his confession of love in the throes of pleasure, he’s balanced along the line of insinuation that their departure together from Papermill is a vague, unlikely option. 

Two days after the meeting with Combs, October begins with an abrupt drop in temperature and a chilling rainfall. When Bill rises, the rain is falling steadily in hammering pattern against the roof which matches the low, dull roar of his nerves. Wendy calls soon after to let him know she has the protection arranged beginning a day from now. 

When silence lags across the line, she urges, “Have you told him?”

Bill squeezes the phone to his ear, listening to the thunder of his own heartbeat drowning out Wendy’s soft, even breathing. 

“Bill, do not thrust this on him. He’ll find it more difficult to uproot his life for the foreseeable future if he receives no warning, no-”

“I’ll tell him.” Bill bites out. “I’ll do it today.”

“Good.” 

Tension hammers across the telephone line in silence. Insinuation and understanding lie in a nonverbal heap beneath their usual rapport, the cold knife of the truth cutting away veiled perceptions of one another. As much as they trust each other, they now hold a secret that hadn’t been given away freely but wrenched from their chests; the terror of that exposure has yet to sink into relief. 

“Bill …” Wendy says, gently. “I know that you care for him-”

Bill sucks in a sharp breath against the flash of heat scorching his throat and cheeks. “Wendy, I don't-”

“I’m not forcing you to talk about it.” Wendy soothes, “I’m simply saying, I understand. It’s much easier to remain in peaceful oblivion, but we must face reality. Gunn will not remain docile for long, especially once he discovers the ledgers have been removed from the safe. It’s in Holden’s best interests that he leave town.”

_ That he leave me …  _ Bill thinks, hating the very shape of the words carving themselves across his mind. 

“Okay, I’ll tell him. Today.” He repeats in a raspy whisper. 

“All right, I’ll see you in a bit then.”

“Yeah, see you.”

After they hang up, Bill shuffles away from the telephone to the front door which is standing open to allow the gust of the rainy, autumn breeze through the screen door. It seethes against his constricting lungs like a balm, and cools the sweat on his brow. 

He steps outside, hoping a few more minutes of fresh air and a cigarette will calm his racing nerves and convince him of what he must do. The delivered newspaper is lying in a soggy heap at the foot of the porch. Leaving his unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth, he nudges it over with the toe of his boot, and his stomach drops out into the mud. 

_ MISSING MAN’S BODY DISCOVERED NEAR LAKE CLARE  _

Dropping his cigarette to the ground, Bill crouches down to gather the damp newspaper in his hands. He squints at the smudged print, his pulse surging, the sound of the rain fading away. 

_ Papermill, Va - In the early hours of Saturday morning, John Bricker and his bloodhound, Max, were taking a leisurely walk in the woods along Lake Clare when Bricker reports his dog began barking, “like he usually does when he smells prey.” But instead of a squirrel or a quail, Max followed his nose to a shallow grave where the remains had been partially uncovered by rainfall. The body was identified by friends and family as Paul Bateson, a local man who went missing in early August. Sheriff Brudos reports that there are signs of foul play, and that his office will be launching an investigation forthwith.  _

The article goes on in detail about Paul’s disappearance and the interview with Sheriff Brudos. The article also mentions a “close friend” of Paul’s, an Addison Verrell, whose statement deftly omits Paul’s involvement in the illegal alcohol trade and portrays him as a “good guy,” at most a petty thief who didn’t deserve to die. 

“Are you okay?” 

Bill whirls around at the sound of Nancy’s voice. She’s standing in the doorway, holding the screen door open. A frown knits her brow as the silence between them is interrupted by the patter of rainfall on the porch overhang. 

“Uh, yeah. Fine.”

“Are you coming back in? The rain’s picking up.”

Bill squeezes the damp newspaper in his fist as he follows her back inside. He sits in the recliner by the fireplace while she finishes preparing breakfast and gets Brian out of bed. Skimming the rest of the article, he clenches his jaw against the bounding lurch of dread in his veins. 

He’d done his best to put Paul out of his mind in favor of the investigation, but their last interaction scorches across his mind.  _ So, you’re sick of scrounging around here in the dirt with the rest of us degenerates, hm? Got a taste of what it’s like to be a hero, and now you’re fucking high on it? _ Bill had lashed out against that jab, but in retrospect, Paul hadn’t been too far off the mark. And he’d paid for Bill’s pathetic attempts at self-redemption with his life. 

Bill leans back in the chair, and rubs a hand over his eyes. He hasn’t wanted to drink in weeks, but the urge is momentarily overwhelming. What’s the point of stopping himself? He can’t fix anything; despite his best efforts, all he does is hurt himself and the people around him. And if Holden leaves for good, any change he'd managed to facilitate in Bill will have been for naught.

Bill sucks in a deep breath, forcing down his burgeoning emotions when Nancy coaxes Brian down the hall from his bedroom. 

“I’m still tired.” Brian whines, leaning against her grip on his hand. “I don’t wanna go to school.”

“I know, but you have to.” Nancy says. 

Brian begins to whimper, his little face crumpling into pinched, dramatic agony. 

Bill sets aside the newspaper, and uses a stern tone, “Brian.”

The boy stops his simpering, and rubs a fist over his eyes. 

“Come here.” Bill orders, holding out a hand. 

Nancy lets go of Brian’s wrist, and curls her arms around her waist. Their eyes meet over Brian’s head as the boy shuffles meekly to him. Ignoring her concerned gaze, he takes Brian by the shoulders, and pulls him close. 

“Listen to me,” Bill says, pushing his fingers under Brian’s chin. 

Brian’s dark brown eyes shimmering with fat tears are so like his father’s, like David’s. Bill can almost feel the blood between his fingers, and David’s chest shuddering with agonal breaths as he gazed up at Bill with those same, limpid eyes. 

“Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do.” Bill says to Brian, firming his tone. “Life isn’t fair, okay? You need to listen to Nancy and get ready for school.”

Brian blinks, sending a tear streaking down his cheek. 

Bill hastily smears it away with his thumb, and squeezes Brian chin harder in his grasp. “Now, stop it, all right?  _ Stop _ .”

“Bill.” Nancy says, softly, putting a hand on Brian’s head.

Bill gets up from the chair, and heads for the door, his chest burning. 

“Bill-” Nancy repeats, her tone growing tense with worry. “Don’t you want breakfast?”

“No, I have to go.” Bill says, stamping his hat on his head, and grabbing his coat, “The case we’re working is wrapping up. I’ll be home late tonight.”

“How late? Is everything okay?”

He ignores her questions as he pulls on his coat and yanks the front door open. He hears another plaintive question as he strides down the porch steps toward the car, but he doesn’t look back.

His fingers twitch around the wheel as he drives, every nerve-ending and blood vessel inside of him straining for relief. When he pulls in front of the burned-out house, he sits still with the engine rumbling and his mind cleaved in two. 

Every pathetic, withered part of him wants to crawl down into the darkness of the cellar and drink himself into oblivion. Their current situation isn’t the success they’d hoped for; the cost of victory is much too high. What’s in that blackmail book could ruin them, and that’s just the beginning - he hadn’t left his own toxicity behind on Wopsononock Mountain, but had dragged it home with him, soiling everything and everyone in his wake. 

From the clamor of his mind, Holden’s voice leads him away from the center of his distress, asking him if he’s certain he wants to ruin his last few months of sobriety. 

Bill throws the car into reverse, and backs out onto the road. He drives the other direction, into town. When he gets to St. Stephen’s, the parsonage is draped in dusky shadow beneath the soaring steeple pinning back thick, gray cloud cover. Rain drizzles from the sky in a misty haze that shocks the heat on his cheeks when he gets out of the car and strides toward the apartment.

He knocks heavily with his fist, and the door swings swiftly inward. 

“Bill,” Holden says, reading the distress on Bill’s face with an alarmed gaze. 

“Can I come in?”

“Of course.” 

Holden stands aside as Bill crosses the threshold and takes off his rain-soaked hat. “What’s wrong?” 

Bill doesn’t answer. He hurriedly hangs his coat on the hook, and turns to wrap his arms around Holden’s waist and bury his face in the familiar warmth of his neck. 

Holden utters a startled grunt, but settles a palm against his nape, soft and reassuring. “Are you okay?”

Bill shakes his head into Holden’s throat. He forces himself to slow down his breathing as the scent of Holden’s skin infiltrates his senses, drugging the itching longing for drunken oblivion down into a bearable pinch between his ribs. 

Holden quietly cradles him close until Bill lifts his head. The vision of his blue eyes and soft mouth is a blurry mess that Bill drags his trembling fingers across. 

“What is it?” Holden whispers, his brow knotting worriedly. 

The truth clumps at the back of Bill’s throat. He swallows hard, trying to work the knot loose, trying to push the words free.  _ We’ve been found out.  _

“Bill?”

Bill glances at the floor, then back to Holden. His voice is choked as he admits the only truth he can allow at the moment, “I felt like drinking. So I came here instead.”

Holden reaches up to clutch his wrist, holding Bill’s hand to his cheek. “Tell me what happened.”

Bill shakes his head. 

“Bill-”

“Please, Holden, I just- ...I need you to-” Bill presses closer, planting a sloppy kiss that’s more of a mash of skin against skin and hot breath on Holden’s cheek. “I need you to help me, get me under control-”

“Bill, wait-” Holden whispers, beginning to withdraw. 

“ _ Please _ . I can’t do this on my own.”

Holden’s eyes press shut. Resisting, as he must, in their precarious dance until he willingly takes the lead. 

Bill licks dry lips. His pulse is roaring, doubling back on itself. The next words wheeze softly, almost inaudibly from his throat, “Hurt me…”

They breathe heavily against one another’s mouths as Holden slowly opens his eyes. Hesitance sinks below that fiery, vicious streak inside of him that Bill knows all too well. 

“Are you sure?” He asks, the way he always does when they both already know the answer. 

Bill nods, exhaling a shuddering breath. “Yes. I want you to take everything. Do whatever you think is necessary … hold me down, punish me, hurt me-”

“Let me go.”

Bill stops, breath arresting in his lungs. Holden’s voice has taken on that strident, icy quality. 

“Holden-”

“Let me go,” Holden repeats, wiggling forcefully against the coil of Bill’s embrace. 

Bill retracts his arms, and takes an unsteady step backwards. Holden is staring at him, trembling, but growing calmer with his hands flexing into steadying fists at his sides; and Bill can already feel the lick of pain across his bare skin, edged with fresh danger now that it’s entirely detached from any semblance of religion or penance. 

“Go to the bed and undress. I’ll be right there.” Holden says, his chin lifting against a lingering tremor.

“Yes, sir.”

Holden’s eyes spark with exhilaration anew at Bill’s meek reply. No “Father” because they’ve left behind God; no remnants of sacrament, only their own kind of bloodlust. 

He goes to the bedroom, his head swimming with arousal and possibilities. Stripping out of his clothing, he crawls into the bed where the faded duvet scratches faintly against his bare skin, a prelude to stark sensations of burning and aching. He’s weak and trembling because he knows the rest of the day is out of his control, his choices taken from him, his mouth reserved for nothing more than pleading and crying; and it’s a relief, a weight lifted from his breastbone, as he realizes he doesn’t have to think anymore about his guilt or the uncertainty of the future for a few hours. 

Holden arrives a few moments later with the bottle of oil and a slim cane. He’s taken off his white collar, leaving him all in black. He surveys Bill’s naked body and his cock already getting hard against his belly. A deep, slow breath flares his nostrils as he sets the oil and cane aside, and softly orders, “Turn over. On your stomach.”

Bill obeys, muting a groan as his cock aches against the threadbare scratch of the duvet. 

“Put your hands above your head.” Holden says. He wanders over to his closet, and runs his fingertips across the fabrics. 

Bill lifts his arms while Holden pulls a purple stole fringed with gold from the closet. 

“What’s that for?” He whispers. 

Holden slides his palm along the length of the stole as he crosses the room, and climbs onto the bed. 

“You asked me to hold you down, take everything.” He murmurs, looping the silky fabric under Bill’s outstretched wrists. “Didn’t you?”

Bill can’t muster a reply. He doesn’t resist as the stole winds around his wrists, drawing them taut against one another before Holden secures them to the rung of the headboard. 

“I want you powerless.” Holden says, finishing off bondage with a secure knot. He runs a pair of fingers absently through Bill’s hair and down his nape, inciting the ripple of shivers. “Completely at my mercy.”

Bill swallows back a quickly rising moan, and squirms involuntarily against the sheets as arousal is quick to burn down his body. 

Holden shoves his face down into the pillow, and bends to whisper in his ear, “I want you to be still, silent, and obedient to my every command. If you don’t do exactly as I say, you’re not going to climax at all, Bill. I will leave you here, tied down, hard and aching, begging me to let you come.”

Bill breathes hard into the pillow, his pulse roaring in his ears and his cheeks burning hot with erotic humiliation. The thought that he’s only been introduced to a scant shadow of this side of Holden flashes across his mind. 

Climbing off the bed again, Holden strips out of his clothing. In the yellow lamplight, all of the scars on his pale, lean body are on display, no longer hidden beneath holy vestments. The faded lines striping his back are unaccompanied by fresh wounds, and his arms are a jaded battleground. Holding the cane confidently between his fists, he turns to Bill with an expression of power settling into his beautiful features. 

Bill thinks this must be what an avenging angel looks like just before he realizes that isn’t right. Holden has shrugged off his religious mantle, leaving his clerical collar behind. He isn’t ensconced by his guilt or righteousness in this moment. He is raw with his own power. If he knew the truth of their situation, perhaps he would not lean so quickly into this role, but Bill maintains that last scrap of his own power over this darkening scene. 

Shoving that thought from his mind, Bill focuses entirely on Holden’s naked body moving toward him and the threat of the cane in his hand. Heat pools low in his belly as Holden extends the implement over his hunched, trembling shoulders. The smooth wood grazes down the arching terrain of his spine, cropping up shivers that tingle down into the soles of his feet. Bill presses his eyes shut as it travels, seeking out the swell of his backside and the tender portion of his thighs just below. 

“Holden …” He breathes out, raggedly, his arms straining against the stole. 

Holden flicks the switch suddenly over his thighs, igniting a flash of fiery pain that makes Bill jolt against the restraints. 

“I  _ said _ I want you still and silent.” Holden murmurs, petting the smarting skin with the rod. 

Bill clenches his jaw against a bubbling plea. Breathing slowly through his nose, he soothes his racing impulses until he can open his eyes and meet Holden’s decisive stare. 

Holden strikes him again, just hard enough to test Bill’s resolve against crying out. The rod lands across his backside in a burning line that disperses into a general, gently pulsating sting. 

Bill swallows back a plaintive moan with his jaw clamped shut. 

“Shh, that’s good.” Holden murmurs, moving closer to run his fingertips down the back of Bill’s thigh. 

Bill stiffens against the sheets, and casts a glance over his shoulder to watch Holden’s touch map out his thigh and calf. The switch lays still over his backside, awaiting the flick of Holden’s wrist, and it’s difficult not to squirm with the heady weight of intention lingering between these passive sensations. 

Withdrawing his hand, Holden rubs the smooth, finished rod over Bill’s ass, warming the skin with friction before he lifts it again. 

Bill braces himself, but he can’t stop the startled rebellion of his entire body lurching against the scratchy duvet and the pinching restraint of the stole. A moan seeps past his nostrils, rewarding him with another harsh strike across the backs of his thighs. His body instinctively longs to curl in upon itself, away from the threat of pain, but he forces himself to lie stretched out and still while the switch drags up and down his burning flesh. 

Holden hums softly at the back of his throat, as if indecisive of where he should use the cane next. 

Bill swallows convulsively as his body thrums, every inch itching and alive with anticipation. He shifts minutely against the sheets, eager to relieve some of the pressure on his throbbing cock, but the drag of his erection against the bedding only intensifies the ache. He tries not to whimper, an effort that fails almost as soon as it begins. 

Holden uses the switch across his backside with purposeful intention, three burning lashes that manage to mutilate untouched skin each time, and the pain explodes into a feverish hum of agony. 

Bill’s arms lock against the bondage of the stole, and his toes push into the sheets to drag himself away from the fiery strike of the cane. His mouth stretches open, allowing a raspy, choked cry to emerge. 

Holden lets him curl away, his knees seeking out his chest for a moment before he grabs Bill by the ankle to yank him back into position.

A firm hand on the back of Bill’s thigh holds him down for another series of strokes that rain rapidly over his ass and the tender undersides of his thighs. He whines into the pillow, a high-pitched, strangled noise stretching from his chest that he can’t smother as the stinging slap of the switch cuts across sensitive skin with dizzying force. 

When Holden stops, Bill sinks against the sheets, shivering and sucking in hitched breaths. 

“I told you to be still.” Holden murmurs, crawling onto the edge of the bed, and leaning over Bill to softly kiss the back of his neck in contradiction to his fist around the cane. “You’re so stubborn. You can’t learn the first time, can you?”

Bill jaggedly shakes his head, keeping his forehead pressed to the pillow to hide his burning cheeks. Self-revulsion churns in his gut alongside the intense arousal, neither of them quite drowning out the other. 

“You  _ want  _ me to break you, don’t you?” Holden continues, grazing a pair of fingers over the welted flesh where the cane had struck. “Force you. Push you down until you’re nothing.”

Bill nods, his throat too knotted with horror and longing to attempt a verbal reply. 

Holden leans back, a pleased sigh drifting from his mouth. “Spread your legs.”

Bill’s hesitation costs him a sharp slap with the switch across his ass, and he scrambles to get his knees apart. 

Holden moves in between his open thighs, and settles down with his heels tucked under him. He traces the cane from the back of Bill’s right knee, up his thigh, across his backside, and down to the left knee. 

Bill resists squirming against the teasing with his toes and knees dug into the mattress. Tingles ripple down his body, one hot wave after the next. The graze of the cane is seeking and gentle, almost kind, right up until it isn’t any longer; but he can’t anticipate what’s coming with his face buried in the pillow, and he can’t lift his head without entirely facing that this is what he wants, everything his yearning body and fragile mind need. 

Holden begins slowly with the strikes of the cane, a pattern of short, sharp slaps up his left thigh and ass cheek that aren’t entirely unbearable. It’s more humiliating than painful as he’s stretched submissively below Holden’s authoritative purview, taking the sting of the switch with shudders of need working through his body, his cock hard and leaking, and his mouth full of pleading, helpless cries. He tries not to utter them as the cane strikes harder across his right ass cheek, but the deluge of sensation and heightening pain is more than he can bear. 

“Ohh, Jesus-” Bill groans out, his hips flinching away from the cane stinging against his thigh. “Holden, fuck, please-”

Holden pauses, and Bill’s choked, ragged breathing fills the silence. He runs a gentle palm up Bill’s smarting leg, fingertips licking like fire against the swelling welts. 

“Ohh …” Bill whimpers, his body stiffening against the caress. 

Holden bends forward to plant a kiss on the flushed swell of Bill’s ass cheek, undoubtedly absorbing the shudder that ripples down the length of Bill’s body. 

“Does it hurt very badly?” He whispers, hot breath moving up Bill’s taut spine and between his shoulder blades. 

Bill presses his eyes shut, regretting Holden giving him his voice back when he’d been longing to use it only minutes ago. 

“Yes.” He rasps out, his face flooding hotter with shame. “It … It stings.”

“Good.” Holden says, nipping at the shell of Bill’s ear. “Now beg me for more.”

Bill’s mouth trembles open. Every fiber of him is dazed and trembling as he opens his eyes to stare at the purple banding of the stole around his wrists. He’d asked Holden to take utter control of him, but somehow, despite his abject compliance, Holden always manages to strike him dumb and useless. 

“I can’t hear you.” Holden urges, retreating back to the foot of the bed to take up the cane again. 

Bill swallows hard, searching for his voice inside his echoing arousal and shock. 

“Remember what I said.” Holden murmurs, tapping the rod thoughtfully against Bill’s backside. “If you don’t obey …”

“Please-” The words bolt from Bill’s lips in a moment of panic at the thought of being left with his impossibly hard cock and punished backside. “Please, I want more.”

“More?”

“More …” Bill squeezes his eyes shut, and swallows back a groan, “Punishment.”

Holden makes a little sound of triumphant approval, “Yes you do, Bill. You ooze with your longing, your self-contempt. You just want to be told what to do, don’t you?”

“Yes. Please-”

“You want to be put on your knees, forced into submission-”

“Yes, God. Please, I’m begging-”

The cane comes down hard, and Bill realizes that Holden had been restraining himself mightily through the first half of the encounter. Pain races through his body like a lightning strike, breath-taking and overwhelming. His mouth is stretched open with a hollow cry as the lashes resume, one after the next in the same stunning, forceful fashion. 

Holden doesn’t order Bill to silence as the sickening slap of the rod against flesh competes with his wounded cries of blissful agony. He’s singly focused, doling out each strike with measured forethought, treacherous precision, and practiced skill. He knows where to strike, how hard to strike, how many times that same patch of burning, screaming flesh can take the cane before he moves on to the next portion of Bill’s upraised, willing ass and thighs. 

Bill gasps and groans, arms fighting against the stole. His hips lurch and recoil helplessly beneath each crack of the cane, but Holden follows every flinch with a blow so stunning that he’s forced back into compliance. The pain swells into burning, disconnected euphoria, a dizzy and breathless high of agony that has him hard and pulsing by the time the beating stops. 

Bill’s chest heaves, and his damp eyelashes flutter open as the sudden silence roars in his ears. His body hums, weightless, fragmented. He’s never felt such pain, such thoughtless abandon.

Holden doesn’t give him a moment’s rest. 

“Get up on your knees.” He orders, quietly yet firmly. 

Bill struggles to get his trembling knees under himself, and Holden waits patiently until he’s crouched in front of him before running his fingertips over battered skin. A wounded cry leaps from Bill’s throat, and his hips lean away instinctively. 

“Shh, come here.” Holden murmurs, “Let me touch you.”

Bill presses his forehead to the sheets in mounting humiliation as Holden takes account of the damage with a gentle touch. His fingertips wander along the tender thighs and the raw swell of ass cheeks, igniting the low sting of fresh pain. 

“My God.” Holden whispers, his tone low and reverent. He reaches between Bill’s trembling thighs to rub his palm down the shaft of Bill’s twitching cock. “Beautiful.”

“Oh, fuck.” Bill groans, stiffening to the caress. 

Holden’s fingers curl around the length of him, pumping gently, and Bill aches and leaks with a needy gush of pre-cum. He gasps, almost faint with the rush of arousal and the tingling edge of orgasm just before Holden releases him again. 

Bill hesitantly lifts his face from the sheets as Holden leans over to grab the oil from the nightstand. He has a moment of clarity when Holden takes off his underwear:  _ this could be their last day together.  _ But he shoves it from his mind, lets this submissive role he’s playing consume him entirely; lets Holden’s portrayal of complete domination and control convince him that nothing could hurt either of them. 

Releasing the last of his resistance, Bill leans back into Holden’s touch as wet fingers climb inside, invading the hot, tight clutches of his body until he’s limp and compliant, gaping open to the impending thrust of Holden’s cock. Holden is whispering, “that’s it; that’s so good” as he works him open with two fingers, then three - at last, replacing them with the hard, blunt tip of his cock.

Neither of them think about forced silence or punishment any longer as their bodies meet. Hard flesh pushes into the soft recesses of Bill’s tender, aching center, and the trim cut of Holden’s hip bones slap against beaten skin as he buries himself to the hilt. They shift into a deep, steady rhythm that glides with ease on the excess oil that Bill can feel trickling down his inner thighs. His body jolts with every impact, intense sensation on sensitive skin and pleasure radiating in breath-taking shockwaves. Though he’s secured by the stole to the bed, he hangs onto the headboard with white-knuckled fists while the fervent pace of Holden’s rutting cock all but pounds the orgasm to the surface. 

“Oh, Holden, I can’t …” Bill groans, desperately, squirming against the thick, persistent invasion of Holden’s cock as his hole quivers with approaching pleasure, “I’m so close … Fuck, I’m gonna come-”

Holden stops abruptly, leaving Bill humming and hollow with echoing sensations. He pulls out, and turns Bill over onto his back. 

Bill twists underneath him, fists jerking at the restraint. Panicked need tears through him as Holden forces his knees to chest. His cock is so hard it aches, and he can’t think past that singular desire for release or soothe his desperation. 

“Fuck, Holden-” He groans, pushing his feet against Holden’s chest as Holden pins him into position. “I need to come, I can’t take it-

“Shh, calm down.” Holden says, lining his cock back up against Bill’s quivering hole. He pushes slowly inside, exhaling a sound of satisfaction. His eyes are luminescent with pleasure, his cheeks rosy and teeth pinched against a pleased smile. “I know what you need.”

Bill whines through his nose as Holden thrusts into him deliberately. His heels push desperately at Holden’s shoulders, but Holden pins him down with both hands gripping the backs of his knees. With his arms tied over his head, he’s helpless to protest as Holden takes up his pounding rhythm again, so hard that it’s another kind of divine punishment. 

“Please, please …” The choked cries simper from his lips as the friction mounts and his body aches. His cock lies unfulfilled against his belly, jolting with every impact of Holden’s body against his own, dribbling with needy bursts of pre-cum to form a little, glistening puddle on his heaving belly. 

Holden glowers down at him, his pace unrelenting. His hair is disheveled and sweat-lined, and perspiration rolls down his neck and chest in gleaming rivulets. The flush of his body competes with the white of amassed scar tissue, numb skin defiant to the hostile takeover of desire. He’s furious and vicious and beautiful; and Bill is conquered, certain he would do anything Holden asked in this moment.  _ Anything, anything, everything.  _

“Holden, please …” It’s more of a whimper this time, the sob of a helpless kitten. 

Holden takes him by his fat, dripping cock, his greatest act of mercy this morning. Bill arches and cries out as his body thrills at the first languid stroke. The pleasure soars through his belly and chest, mounting, everything clamping down, tingling with the approach of climax. 

“Yes, yes, that’s it.” Holden pants, hips slapping against Bill’s ass in rhythm with the jerk of his fist on his cock. 

The pleasure slams into him, hard between his ribs. Bill can’t breathe as it swells and swells, growing almost too big for his own body, until he feels the surge of release at his core. Pent-up pressure rushes from deep in his groin, draining out from his cock in a series of copious bursts against his belly. The spasms gripping him from the inside out strike him breathless and mindless. 

When Holden comes inside him, he’s barely lucid. White and blank, his mind seems to float free of his overstimulated body for a few moments until Holden lays on top of him, pinning him down to the ephemeral bliss. 

They’re both silent except for raspy, spent breaths. 

Bill gradually opens his eyes to look up at the ceiling. His body aches and shudders, trapped between conflicting impulses of pleasure and pain. His arms are still bound above his head, but he can’t resist the impotence. Holden curls against him, his body all warm and melted and smelling familiar and divine; it’s all the protection Bill could have wanted against the cruelty of the world.

^^^

Holden lays still against the secure warmth of Bill’s body for as long as he can, warding off the encroaching chill of reality. The seconds of blind confidence that had once been quick to fade into regret linger longer every time they’re together like this - and tonight, these shards of pleasure are stubborn, sticking like barbed thorns into his palms. He knows what he’s done - turned his back to God - but he can’t face it. So he curls tighter against Bill instead, breathing in the scent of his skin, stealing his warmth and subsisting off his need for reassurance. 

Holden can’t even reassure himself, but he keeps his splintering thoughts in silence. Eventually, when the sweat and release between them cools and grows tacky, he rises from the bed. 

“We should get cleaned up, but you need some relief first,” Holden says, motioning for Bill to follow him. 

Bill stifles a lethargic groan, and drags himself from the sheets to Holden’s heels.

In the bathroom, Holden runs a cold bath first, and orders Bill to sit in it for at least ten minutes to reduce any pain and inflammation. 

“Holden, I’m fine.” Bill grumbles.

“Yes, you will be once you apply some cold to the affected areas. It should be an ice bath so you’re getting off easily.”

Bill sighs as he stares down at the tub of cold water. “You could try sounding a little less like my old drill sergeant.”

“Bill,” Holden says, taking him by the chin and making Bill look at him, “I know the pain you’re in. Just do as I say.”

Bill’s nostrils flare, and his gaze ducks away; but he murmurs, softly, “Okay.”

Holden bites his lower lip. He should feel remorse; instead, he feels gratified by Bill’s continuing submission. Planting a quick kiss against Bill’s mouth, he clears his throat, “Okay. Get in.”

Without further argument, Bill steps into the tub, and sinks down with his knees under him. He hisses past clenched teeth when his battered skin hits the cold water. 

“Jesus.” He mutters, gripping the ceramic lip of the bath with shivering hands. 

Holden glances at the clock on the shelf. “Ten minutes, starting now.”

Bill grits his teeth, and casts him a surly gaze. Something - some buried panic - swims beneath the pale blue. It’s more startling than the distant rumble of his own faith crumbling; they’ve always been transparent with one another. 

Leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, Holden pins Bill with a stern gaze. “Are you going to tell me what made you want to drink so violently that we ended up here instead?”

Bill shifts his gaze straight ahead, his jaw rippling with tension. 

“You can’t facilitate what just happened between us and then choose not to tell me.”

Bill shakes his head. His voice is shivering from the cold and emotion when he whispers, “I haven’t exactly been honest with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I should have told you days ago …”

Holden swallows hard, the last of the pleasure lingering in his veins dispersing beneath mounting dread. 

“Wendy and I took the ledgers to Nash. He had to bring his boss into the investigation, but she doesn’t trust him. She held back the blackmail book.”

“And?”

“And we opened it.” Bill says, casting Holden a sharp glance. “Everyone’s names were in there, Holden. People in the government, in business, law enforcement …”

Holden nods, his skin clammy as he anticipates what’s coming next. “In the clergy?”

“Yes.” 

“The drugs?” 

Bill swipes a hand over his face, and inhales shakily. “That ... and-”

“And what?”

“Us.” Bill grinds out, his eyes pressing shut. 

“What do you mean? Us?”

“You know what I mean.” Bill snaps, shifting so abruptly that water splashes over the edge. “‘Homosexual affair.’ That’s how it was written in there - next to all the cover-ups, bribes, and gambling debts. As if this has just been some scandalous fling, some mistake-”

“Wait, wait-” Holden says, rushing to the side of the tub and sinking to his knees. “Gunn knows about us?”

Bill opens his eyes slowly, and meets Holden’s horrified stare. He nods, jaggedly. 

“How? How could he possibly know?”

“I’m not sure, but I don’t even know if he has tangible evidence.”

“You and I both know that doesn’t matter - just the  _ whisper  _ of it could ruin us both!”

“Yeah, which is why we’re gonna stop Gunn before he has a chance to use it against us. After today, you’re going to D.C. The deputy assistant at the DOJ needs your witness statements, and we need to get you into protective custody. This entire investigation hinges on you, and we can’t let anything happen to-”

“Protective custody? Bill, if I leave, Gunn will know something is wrong.”

“Maybe. But it’ll be too late for him to do anything about it.”

Holden rises slowly to his feet, and scrapes both hands through his hair. He knows this feeling well - crashing down from a high. Only this time, there’s no heroin involved.

He paces the small area of the bathroom, his hand pressed to his mouth. “For how long?”

“Until it’s over.”

“Will I see you in D.C.?” Holden asks, turning slowly on his heel to gaze apprehensively at Bill stoic expression. 

“I don’t know. Not much. We can’t arouse any suspicion. If the DOJ or Customs found out about us, the whole investigation could be compromised.”

Holden nods, lifting his chin against the instinctive flare of rebellion in his chest. He wants to say that he would rather stay and fight it out with Gunn if it meant having Bill close to him, but he knows that’s an unrealistic fantasy. 

“I’m just supposed to abandon this town and the church?” He asks, “I don’t know if I can do that.”

Bill rises to his feet, and water sluices down the hard, muscular angles of his body. Holden doesn’t try to argue with him about another few minutes in the cold water as he pulls a towel around his waist, and joins Holden by the sink.

“Once this is over, do you really want to stay?” Bill asks, hands settling on Holden’s hips. His chilled palms sap out the warmth in Holden’s skin, but Holden leans closer. “After everything, you’re gonna go back to being their priest?”

“I don’t know what else to do. The priesthood is my whole life, my calling …”

Bill scoffs, his mouth tilting with a rueful smile. “Try telling that to the man I just met in your bedroom.”

Holden glances away, his cheeks growing hot. He should be ashamed of himself. He should be casting aside his clerical collar and his robes because he’s undeserving of them, but it’s all he knows; and he wants to have both - a civil war inside his own flesh that he would endure for eternity if it meant keeping the two loves of his life. 

“What are  _ you  _ going to do?” He asks, glancing back up at Bill. “You asked me to run away with you, but if we both stayed …”

“We can’t.” Bill says, his brow knitting. “Don’t you understand that yet? I tried that, Holden. David and I had an affair for a year and a half, and by the time we left for Pennsylvania, we were so unhappy that we could barely stand each other anymore. I was begging him to get out, but he had his wife, his son. And you - … you have God and the church. How am I supposed to compete with God Himself?”

“You’re asking me to leave behind my entire life, everything I know.”

“Yes. Take the risk.” Bill says, catching Holden by the cheeks and pulling him close again. “I don’t know if I can go through that again. I can’t breathe without feeling the things I feel for you tied up in my chest. You’re in my bones - you make me ache like there’s a storm coming, and I can’t make it stop. Does God love you like that? Does God make you feel the things that I do?”

Holden presses his eyes shut against fresh tears, and shakes his head. He can feel it coming up again like a back-flowing sink - the guilt, the self-repulsion. 

“The things we feel together are wrong.” He whispers, unsteadily, trying to convince himself. “What we just did is wrong. It’s no better than what I used to let Ed do to me. It’s terrible, and vile-”

“No, it isn’t anything like that.” 

Holden carefully opens his eyes to the whisper of Bill’s breath on his cheeks, and glimpses through a haze of tortured tears the impassioned plea written across his face. 

“Listen to me,” Bill whispers, stroking fervently at Holden’s cheek with his thumb, “You told me that sin is about intention - if that’s true then so is love. So is everything we’ve ever had together. You’ve never  _ ever  _ hurt me in a way I didn’t want. I don’t know how to explain it, but you make me feel things I’ve never felt before - good things. And after it’s all said and done, you stay with me like you’re not going to leave the way everyone else does - or you make me take a fucking ice bath to make the pain go away. And I trust you enough to let all happen. How could it be anything like your past? 

Holden blinks against a haze of tears, his mouth trembling.

“It’s not.” Bill whispers, shakily, desperately pressing his forehead to Holden’s. “Now take it back. Tell me you don’t think that.”

Holden squeezes his eyes shut, and leans into him. His arguments and guilt are vapid and useless as Bill kisses him, his mouth devoted and fervid against Holden’s trembling lips, cheeks, and throat. 

When he pulls back again, Holden sighs wearily. “Okay.”

“You agree?”

Holden straightens against the wall, and guides Bill’s hands from his cheeks. “Come on, let’s drain the tub so we can have a real bath - a warm one.”

He moves past Bill before he has to face the unanswered questions still hovering in the air between them. He pulls the plug out of the tub, and straightens while the cold water drains away. 

Bill presses up behind him, wrapping his arms slowly around Holden’s waist and scattering kisses up his shoulder and neck. 

“If you come away with me, we could have this every day.” He whispers. 

Holden shakes his head, trying to fight off the buzz of warmth in his veins. “Let’s just have today.”

Bill’s vision of the future sounds risky yet triumphant, a world in which they forsake their morals and their vows for one another with little consequence but the opportunity to spend the rest of their lives together. Holden is no optimist, but Bill makes it easy to believe when he’s pressed up behind Holden, kissing him softly on the nape. 

It’s even easier when the tub is full of water again, this time warm and soothing, and Holden is sitting between Bill’s legs with his back pressed to his chest while Bill’s arms cradle him securely. In the buoyant warmth, Holden lets his mind slip away into an infantile tabula rasa, as if he’s rocked in the womb of his birth before all the heartache and brutality of the world had touched him. 


	21. the faltering fulcrum of faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Holden goes into witness protection, he must face the prospect of leaving Papermill forever and all the consequences that future would entail. Meanwhile, the others players in the investigation are not struck with any such indecision.

On the morning that Holden leaves, the crisp blue sky is purged of the preceding rainclouds. Blinding sunlight offers deceiving warmth whose pretense is shattered the moment he carries his suitcases out of the parsonage toward Bill’s idling car. A cold breeze cuts past his cassock, aiding the existing shiver of apprehension in his belly. 

Bill gets out of the car to open the trunk. Wordlessly, he takes Holden’s luggage from him, and puts it inside. 

Once they’re on the road toward D.C., Holden shifts a glance to Bill’s stoic profile fixed to the road ahead. He’s scowling, puffing fervidly on his cigarette. 

“I’m going, aren’t I?” Holden asks, clasping his hands tightly in his lap.

“Hm?” Bill grunts, cutting him a narrowed glance. 

“I’m going to D.C., into protective custody like you wanted.”

“Holden, none of this is what I wanted.” 

Holden swallows hard against the bitter taste in his throat. 

Bill had called last night to inform him that he was going to D.C. whether he liked it or not; Holden had argued that he be allowed the rest of the week in Papermill to at least inform the townspeople of his impending sabbatical. Bill insisted they couldn’t take the risk. The call ended with cold farewells. This morning, the thaw has yet to spark, and protective custody isn’t the only point of contention. 

“You expect a lot of people, you know.” Holden mutters, gazing dismally at the dying trees lining the road. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You want me to leave the church, and you wanted David to leave his family. It isn’t that simple.”

“I know that.” Bill replies, defensively. “I’d be leaving behind my life, too. Trust me, I don’t expect it to be easy.”

“Well, you make it seem that way.”

“Forgive me for knowing what I want. For not deluding myself into letting some so-called omniscient, invisible power dictate my life and my future-”

“How dare you,” Holden says, cutting him a horrified glare. 

Bill mutters a scoff, and cranks down the window to ash his cigarette. 

“Have you ever considered that maybe God is trying to teach you something?” Holden asks, “That every time you defy Him, you risk something else being taken away? If you would just surrender to Him, you might-”

“Might what? Be  _ allowed  _ my happiness?” Bill demands, his eyes flashing, “I don’t understand you sometimes. You claim that your God is a loving father, that he wants what’s best for us; but then you also claim that he condemns everything that we feel, that we have together. How can you not see that your teachings contradict each other?”

Holden turns back to the window, blinking against the sudden sting of tears. They’re not cradled by the warm bath water any longer; this is the real world, and he has to face the consequences. Only the fulcrum of his faith is faltering, and he can’t reconcile what he knows with what he feels. 

“I’m sorry.” Bill says, finally, his voice softening. “I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I just don’t understand. I’ve tried - I just can’t.” 

Holden sniffs, swiping at the corner of his eye. “I know.”

He glances down when Bill’s hand reaches over to touch his knee, and he grabs onto it. Their fingers lace together roughly, clinging on with a tremble of desperation. 

The rest of the drive is subdued. Holden swallows back lingering tears, and forces himself to focus on the task at hand. He has to see this investigation and his part in it to the end. If that means leaving Papermill for a few weeks, so be it. 

When they reach the DOJ building, they share a somber gaze. Bill offers a faint smile of encouragement before nodding for Holden to follow him. They walk silently up the wide, stone steps into the bustling lobby, and ride the elevator up to the DOJ’s criminal and fraud division. Wendy is waiting for them outside the conference room where Combs will be taking Holden’s statements. She stubs out her cigarette in the hallway’s ashtray, and meets them a few yards from the open door of the conference room. 

“Father,” She says, putting a hand on Holden’s elbow. “How do you feel?”

“Nervous.” Holden says, “But ready to put this thing to bed.”

“Good. I think we can all agree we feel the same.” 

“Bill tells me that I’ll be staying with you here in D.C. until permanent protection is enforced.”

“Yes. We’ll have armed protection at my home, but for now, I prefer to keep you close until we know who we can trust in the U.S. Marshals.” 

“It’s the safest place I think you could be right now.” Bill interjects, casting Holden a firm gaze. 

Holden nods, clenching his jaw. What Bill really means is that Wendy will babysit him like none other; she won’t let him out of her sight, and she’ll happily report his every move to Bill. 

“All right, let’s go.” Wendy says, waving for them to follow her, “I think they’re ready for us.”

The conference room is brimming with conversation and cigarette smoke. Seated around the long table are Warren Combs, Boyd Nash, Amos Garth, a secretary who will be transcribing, and a few other men in black suits that must be a part of the DOJ division that Holden doesn’t recognize. Everyone quiets down when he enters the room. 

Combs stands up, and reaches across the table to shake Holden’s hand. 

“Father Ford, a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, sir.” 

“Of course you already know Agents Tench and Carr, and Assistant APD Nash.” Combs says, nodding to each one of them in turn before acknowledging the man on his left who Holden has never seen before, “This is Cary Martin from the Treasury Department. He’ll be overseeing the charges of tax evasion we intend to bring against Ted Gunn based on the ledgers you brought to us.”

Martin extends his hand, a grim smile tugging at his mouth. “Father. How does it feel to be doing God’s work in the church  _ and _ the federal justice system?”

“Nerve-wracking.” Holden replies, mustering his own smile as he shakes Martin’s hand. 

“We’ll try not to grill you too hard, but your statement is integral to this investigation.” Combs says. He waves at the chair across from them. “Please, have a seat, and we can get started.”

Holden sits down, and grasps the arms of the chair with sweaty palms. All of the eyes in the room are on him, a weight he should be comfortable with after standing behind a pulpit; but he’s never given such important testimony as he will today, and after the previous morning in Bill’s company, he wonders if God is still guiding his voice. 

^^^

Wendy’s quaint, white Tudor is situated just outside downtown D.C. on a carefully manicured lawn. Vines climb up the aged brick and around the gabled windows toward the peaked roof as if this place is a part of nature and not an extension of the concrete and mortar of the inner city. The street is quiet and suburban, hosting families of the middle class and elderly folks sitting in their rockers on front porches. 

Holden thinks that the woman he knows doesn’t fit in here, but the interior of the antiquated home is marked with signs of an intelligent, careful occupant. Curtains are drawn over each window, and the door is secured with a lock and deadbolt. The furnishings are cozy, yet sparse; each possession has its place and use. 

While Wendy talks to the head BOI agent assigned to their protective detail out on the porch, he studies the living room. There’s no sign of a pet or any family in the house. The framed photographs on the wall are of two people who he assumes are Wendy’s parents, a blond woman with movie-star quality features and an older, austere man who Wendy clearly inherited her nose and cheekbones from - and from what Holden’s understands, her investigative smarts and thirst for justice. 

Wendy comes back in as he’s inspecting a photograph of the Carrs each astride horses on a beach that must be somewhere in the Caribbean. 

“Making yourself at home?” She asks, shrugging out of her coat and hanging it by the door. 

“I apologize. I wasn’t trying to snoop.”

“You’re not snooping. They’re on display.” She says, waving a generous hand at the photographs. 

“Your parents?”

“Yes.”

“They make a handsome couple.”

“Mm, my father always said he didn’t understand what she saw in a grizzled old man like him.” Wendy remarks, her mouth tilting with a fond smile. “She wanted to be a Broadway actress.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes. She was a wonderful singer.”

“How did they end up together?”

“Fate, really. He was following a suspect when he nearly plowed her over with his horse. He stopped to help her up, and lost the suspect.”

“Romantic.”

“He liked to call it chivalry. I think he was smitten from that very moment. Funny thing …”

“What’s that?”

“Years later, he was in a riding accident that nearly crippled him. One of the things he loved doing most - that they loved doing together - nearly trampled both him and my mother.” Wendy observes the photograph with a distant smile before she clears her throat, and motions for Holden to follow her, “Come. Let’s get you settled in.”

She takes him to the guest bedroom, and tells him to take his time unpacking while she cooks dinner. When she leaves, Holden doesn’t touch his tightly packed suitcases sitting by the door. He eases down to the edge of the bed, and glances around the scarcely furnished room. The telephone on the nightstand bids him to call Bill just to hear his voice, but he decides doing so would betray the depth of his longing too much. 

He goes to the bathroom down the hall, and draws a bath. Sliding down into the water, he closes his eyes and thinks of Bill’s arms around him. As much as he wants to cling to his guilt, the memory is the only thing offering him comfort in strange surroundings with an uncertain future hanging over his head. If he dwells on it too long, the prospect of leaving St. Stephen’s without proper warning or farewell is too crushing to bear; he knows what it’s like to be abandoned. 

Shortly after he gets out of the tub and redresses, Wendy knocks on his door to let him know dinner is ready. In the kitchen, he’s greeted with the warm, savory scent of chicken and dumplings. 

“Would you mind if I said grace?” Holden asks as they sit down across from each other. 

Wendy sets her fork down, and cants her head. 

Holden offers her his hand, and she takes it with some hesitation. Pressing his eyes shut, he mutters a quick prayer before relinquishing the grasp.

The tines of their forks scratch quietly against china for a few tense moments until Holden clears his throat. 

“So, you said you believe Fate brought your parents together. Do you believe in divine intervention?” 

She smiles, softly. “No. I don’t believe in God, Father, but I do respect other people’s faith in him. I understand why it brings them comfort.”

“I see.”

Reading the gathering challenge in his eyes, she forestalls him with a wave of her hand. “Please, don’t try to convince me otherwise. Your breath is better spent on someone less bitter and jaded.”

“Jaded?”

“I think you know what I mean.” 

“I don’t.”

Wendy swallows down a bite of dumpling, and presses the corner of her napkin to her mouth. “Bill told you about Gunn’s blackmail book.”

Holden’s fork goes still against his bowl as he finds it hard to meet her decisive stare. Of course, he had known somewhere in the back of his mind that Wendy claiming possession of the book meant her finding out about him and Bill, but he still isn’t prepared to face the existence of their relationship beyond the two of them. 

“How long have you known?” Holden whispers, staring at his congealing dumplings. 

“Before the book, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Holden’s gaze rises sharply. “How?”

She sets her fork down, and leans back in her chair. “I recognized the way he looks at you. I know what it’s like to be in love with someone, and to have to keep it a secret. There’s this … desperation, a fastidiousness. You must absorb every innocuous detail of that person because you aren’t allowed to touch them in public or acknowledge your feelings beyond the four walls of a private bedroom.” 

“What are you saying?”

“You know what I’m saying.” She replies, curtly, taking up her fork again. “And it’s why I don’t believe in God, and why I question how you still do.”

Holden shakes his head. “What Bill and I …  _ do  _ is wrong. I’m trying to reconcile that with myself. I’m trying to end things.”

“I’m not saying it’s within your best interests to continue. Matters of the heart rarely avoid some collateral damage. I, more than anyone, know that the risk is sometimes not worth the reward. Sometimes there is no reward aside from those miniscule moments of profound freedom when the flame was still burning.”

Holden glances away, the corners of his eyes stinging. 

“I see how much of yourself you’ve put into this investigation.” Wendy adds, more softly. “I’m only saying that I don’t want to see you end up with nothing in the end. If you think it’s worth it, continue. If not, don’t protract your suffering - for either of you.” 

“How do I know that?” Holden asks, “I’m going to have to leave Papermill, Wendy. Either way, I don’t win. If I want to be with him, we can’t remain. If I decide to end our relationship, I can’t live in the same town, and see him every day, and-”

“Is that the worst of it? Leaving Papermill? That town is full of vultures.”

“It isn’t the town.” Holden mutters, rubbing at his eye with the corner of his sleeve. “It was supposed to be my greatest accomplishment. My first appointment as a priest, my first congregation that I intended to serve faithfully for years to come; and I’ve failed.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Oh, why not?”

“Holden,” Wendy says, leaning forward and reaching across the table to touch his hand, this time willingly. “Think of the people you have saved. You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. Once the scourge of Ted Gunn is gone, those people’s lives are going to improve dramatically. There is going to be a revival in Papermill, and it’s going to be because of you.”

Holden lowers his head, and watches a tear slide down his nose and fall to his lap. He doesn’t know if he believes what Wendy is saying even if he wants to, but the vision of his future at St. Stephen’s suffers it’s final blow in his mind. He’s going to leave; not because he wants to, but because he has to. He doesn’t see any other choice. 

^^^

News of Gunn’s purchase of the Brudos Paper Mill hits the papers on Thursday. Over the phone, Bill reads snippets of the article in which Gunn triumphantly announces the deal to Holden with a grim note of satisfaction:  _ “He has no idea what’s coming.”  _

Holden promises that he’s contacted the Diocese about taking a sabbatical, a statement that isn’t entirely untruthful. He had informed the bishop that he intended to leave Papermill, but only after delivering one last address. Father Jacobsen had departed without warning, and no one at St. Stephen’s had been the better for it. They had initially resisted Holden’s appointment, a mindset that took months to unseat and a faith that he’s still trying to earn. 

He knows what Bill and Wendy would say. Risking returning to St. Stephen’s on Sunday isn’t worth it. Now that Boris Brudos has rolled over and the task force is in full swing, it could be quite dangerous; but that’s just the reason he isn’t telling either one of them. He’s allowed this investigation to consume and dictate enough of his life. If he wants to say goodbye to his parishioners, it should be his prerogative. 

The decision solidifies in his mind by Saturday evening, and when the morning sunlight splits October’s dull, gray clouds on Sunday morning, he moves deftly and carefully to make it happen.

He makes one quick phone call before he takes his time making his bed and dressing in his blacks. Keeping an eye on the clock, he sits still on the edge of the mattress, and says a quiet prayer with his fingers tangled in his rosary until the hands hit seven-fifteen. He creeps out into the hallway where the rest of the house is silent in the early hours of the morning. Wendy’s bedroom door is pulled shut, indicating that she’s still asleep. 

When he steps outside, the cool air prickles goosebumps beneath his sleeves. Ignoring the shiver rolling down his spine, he marches across the street to where the unmarked car houses the two BOI agents assigned to their protective detail. 

The driver rolls down the window at his approach. 

“Is everything all right, Father?”

“I heard a noise this morning.” Holden says, casting a nervous glance back at the house. “So I went to the window and looked out into the backyard. I saw a young man slipping behind the fence. I think he was watching me.”

“When was this?”

“Just now. I think you should go check it out.”

The agent casts his partner a worried scowl, and nods his head. “Come on, let’s go.”

The two men get out of the car, and follow Holden across the street to the house. Holden lingers by the sidewalk, and points toward the back yard. 

“It was right there around those bushes below my window.”

“Get back in the house.” The agent says, “We’ll take care of it.”

Holden walks slowly toward the front porch as they circle the house, but once they are out of sight, he turns and jogs back down the sidewalk. When he reaches the end of the street, the taxi cab is pulling up in front of the address he had given over the phone. Ducking into the backseat, he casts an anxious glance over his shoulder at Wendy’s house. 

“Papermill.” He tells the driver. “Please, hurry.” 

The cabbie steers the car around the corner, and Holden watches as the house and the protective detail disappear from his view. Turning back around, he fixes his gaze straight ahead, and clutches his rosary in his fist. His pulse is pounding with self-doubt, but he can’t turn back. Even if Wendy and Bill are inconsolably upset with him for slipping the protective detail, he has to be able to live with himself after the investigation is over. He has to live with the prospect of never seeing his parishioners or speaking another sermon at St. Stephen’s again. 

The drive to Papermill is uninterrupted with only scarce morning traffic passing them on the road, but Holden’s nerves fray and burn until he sees the white steeple and gray brick of St. Stephen’s rising from among the other buildings. As soon as the driver eases the car to a stop in front of the church, Holden pays him, and slips out of the taxi. 

The parsonage is just as he left it, but when he goes into his bedroom to take his robes for Mass out of the closet, he’s acutely aware of the ghost impression of Bill everywhere. His bedsheets are stained with their sin, even the Bible seated on the nightstand an integrated part of their shared trespasses. He ignores the purple stole for a green one with the white emblem of a dove on each end. Putting it around his neck, he takes up his Bible, and draws in a steadying breath. 

Fifteen minutes later, the congregants begin to filter into the auditorium. Holden watches from across the sanctuary as each person uses the holy water and the sign of the cross at the door before greeting one another and finding their seats. Gunn isn’t among them today. 

When Bill and Nancy enter, the dread in his chest heightens to a nearly suffocating degree. Bill is distracted persuading Brian to perform the ritual at the door as the boy seems ambivalent to the day’s importance. He doesn’t notice Holden’s unsanctioned presence in the church until he and Nancy are at their seats, and Holden stands up to lead the congregation in the first hymns. As their gazes meet, Bill’s face goes slack with shock, and then cold and flint-like with frustration. 

Holden looks away. Through the length of the rites and the sermon, he can feel that searing stare on him, but he ignores its discomfort until he gets to the end of his address. 

“My good people,” He says, gripping the edges of the podium. His throat tightens as he wonders if it’s the last time he’ll ever say those words. Slowly, he lifts his gaze to scan the crowd. They all stare back at him, curiosity unraveling in their eyes and knitting their brows as his raspy whisper hangs in the air. 

Holden clears his throat. “Before we take communion, I would like each and every one of you to know what a pleasure it has been to serve as your priest these past nine months. I had dedicated myself so thoroughly to seminary that I worried I could not live up to not only God’s expectations and mine, but to yours also; and no, it hasn’t been easy. Father Jacobsen’s departure weighed heavily on all of us, and I knew what large shoes I had to fill; but despite any disagreements we may have had, this community has accepted me for what I am. I’ve tried to give you all my best.” 

Hushed silence waxes across the auditorium, stifled with confusion. They must realize this is the prelude to a goodbye. 

Holden blinks as the corners of his eyes sting. His sweeping gaze stops on Bill who is looking at him with a deep frown and yearning gaze. He must be bursting inside to leap to his feet and say something, but Holden can’t allow that fervent devotion stop him. 

“I say all of this because I want you to know that my next steps are about my inadequacies and no one else’s. I’m going to be taking a sabbatical.” Holden continues, mustering a faint smile, “I hope not permanently, but I have some … personal issues that I must address before I can return as your priest. I’ve spoken with my bishop at the Diocese in Arlington, and he has assured me that he will find a suitable replacement as quickly as possible. I apologize for such short notice, but I won’t be back next week. This town has been through so much that I’m loath to do this, but I see no other choice - not when the souls of my flock are at risk. I promised that I would take care of each and every one of you, and to do that, I have to leave for a time. I’m deeply sorry.”

He lets the admission sink in for barely a moment before he asks the congregants to rise for the creed and the universal prayer. Despite their dedication to the rituals, he can sense the deflation inside the walls of St. Stephen’s, the questions bubbling up, the dismay oozing from the languid recitations. 

Holden pushes through communion, eager to be done with the Mass now that he’s spoken the truth. As those who intend to say confession shuffle toward the booth, he glimpses Bill shouldering his way through the crowd, his expression stony and uncaring of the disgruntled mutters that trail in his brusque wake. 

Holden ducks into the booth before Bill can reach him. He hears Bill extend a gruff apology to the woman at the head of the line before the door on the other side opens and slams shut behind him. 

The curtain yanks back. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Bill’s eyes are scintillating like lightning flashes in the darkness of the confessional. 

“Bill, please, this isn’t the place or-”

“I don’t give a damn. What are you doing here?”

“I had to come back.” Holden whispers, his throat knotting as he hesitantly meets Bill’s furious glare. “I had to say goodbye. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Sure. But not at the risk of your safety.”

“Gunn isn’t even here today.”

“Exactly, that’s what makes me worry. I don’t see any protective detail. What did you do?”

Holden swallows hard, dropping his gaze to his lap. “I created a diversion, and caught a taxi here this morning. But I’m going right back. I promise. I just needed to do this-”

“Unbelievable.” Bill mutters, his scoff echoing inside the confined space. “You didn’t tell Wendy either?”

“No. She would have stopped me.”

“With good reason. I want you to stay here until I get back. I’ll take Nancy and Brian home, call Wendy to let her know you’re safe, and then I’m coming right back here to pick you up.”

“I’m not arguing with that.”

“It wouldn’t matter even if you did. This whole investigation hinges on you, Holden. If something happened to you-”

“No, I understand,” Holden hisses, leaning closer to Bill’s side of the booth. “In this case, I’m a piece of evidence that has to be guarded carefully. My life here and my dedication to this church come second.”

Bill exhales a punctuated sigh. From the shadows, his expression is lined with worry and defeat. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it. I just want to make sure you’re safe. Remember how I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to you?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t forgive myself if it did. You have to promise me you won’t do anything like this again.”

“I won’t. I just wanted the chance to say goodbye.”

Silence settles over the confessional as the weight of Holden’s words unfolds into precarious implications. 

Bill lowers his chin. “Goodbye. So, you really are leaving for good?”

“I have to.” Holden whispers, sudden tears mottling his voice. “Bill, I’m a hypocrite. I’ve broken all of my vows to God, I’ve desecrated each sacrament with my sins. Until I’ve fully repented and made myself right in His eyes again, I can’t continue being their priest.”

Bill is quiet from the other side of the booth, processing Holden’s admittance until he draws in a deep breath and clears his throat. 

“Where will you go?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll go to my bishop for council, and they can find a place for me to … to rehabilitate.”

Bill makes a small noise, a strangled clash of disdain and hurt. “Rehabilitate. Just like Father Jacobsen who liked to touch little girls?”

“Yes.” 

“That makes me the innocent victim, huh?”

Holden shakes his head, and swipes at the corner of his eye with his sleeve. “If you mean innocent in that I used my position in this church to take advantage of you, then yes.”

“That isn’t how I see it. I’m not innocent - you know that. I was just as complicit, just as-”

“You were lost.” Holden says, sharply. “You came back from Pennsylvania broken and searching, and I- … I took that vulnerability, and-”

“Helped me. Loved me. Is that so wrong?”

Their eyes meet again in the shadows, and through a blur of tears, Holden can see Bill’s glazed, pleading stare. He sniffs against the knot in his throat, and averts his gaze. 

“Do you want me to take your confession?” He whispers. 

“Confession? No.” Bill says, acidly. “But I’ll be back in a little bit to drive you back to D.C. Don’t do anything else stupid while I’m gone, all right?”

Before Holden can offer a retort, Bill pushes the confessional door open. Illumination floods the booth for half a second before it closes again with a bang. Holden flinches, the squeeze of his eyelids pressing a tear free down his cheek. He hastily wipes it away and pulls the curtain back in place before the next parishioner can occupy the other side of the booth. 

Once he’s taken all of the confessions, he steps out of the box to see a group of congregants, mostly the women who had welcomed him with open arms when he first arrived in Papermill, hovering at the back of the auditorium. They rush to stop him before he can make a quick exit to the parsonage. 

He curtails their questioning by accepting each of their fervent kisses to his knuckles, and affirming what a pleasure it’s been to serve this parish. Despite their insistence, he refuses to admit the reasons for his leaving beyond what he’s already said. Once he’s disentangled himself from their fussing, he departs to his office where he can hide in privacy until the last congregant has vacated the building. 

In the utter silence, he surveys his theological volumes, the collected souvenirs of his travels, the kind eyes of Jesus staring at him from stained-glass, and allows himself to cry if only for a minute. Viciously wiping his eyes, he straightens, and casts a baleful stare at the cherrywood cabinet. Despite his own self-doubt and aversion, he can’t bring himself to think of opening it up, and taking the whip decisively to himself ever again. He can only think of Bill kissing the scars on his arms, telling him he’s suffered enough; moreover, he can only imagine Bill laid out below him, taking each punishment with abject submission and pleasure. That which was once incorruptible has been corrupted, and he doesn’t know how he can ever rehabilitate that part of himself. 

Pushing aside his depressed thoughts, Holden returns to the sanctuary to reorganize after Mass. Once he’s done cleaning away the remnants of communion and discarding melted down candles, he lights two new prayer candles, and kneels down before the altar. 

His silent prayer is interrupted by the loud creak of the church door swinging open. Squeezing his eyes shut, he presses his laced knuckles tighter to his forehead. 

“Just a moment, Bill. Let me at least finish my prayer.”

Footsteps shuffle behind him. More than one pair, if he’s not mistaken. 

“No, Father. Your prayers aren’t going to help you here.”

Holden’s head rises sharply at the sound of Ted Gunn’s voice, but he barely rises from the kneeler before a gruff pair of hands grab him by the back of the neck and the wrist. Panic sears through his chest as he’s yanked around by a man with at least three inches and fifty pounds on him. Gunn is at his shoulder, his hands tucked casually into his pockets while he watches his thug wrench Holden’s arm behind his back. 

Holden twists against the man’s grip, but the meaty hand on the back of his neck might well have been dried cement and the position of his arm behind his back impinges his shoulder to the point of sharp pain. 

“You sneaky bastard,” Gunn says, shifting closer to look Holden in the eyes. “It was you all along, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Holden whispers, holding Gunn’s stare. 

Gunn smiles briefly before slapping Holden’s harshly across the face with the back of his hand. 

Pain explodes across Holden’s cheek and nose. He staggers, head spinning, but Gunn’s hired thug keeps him upright with his wrist forced halfway up his back. 

“Don’t fucking lie to me.” Gunn hisses, grabbing Holden by the chin and forcing him to look up. “I don’t give a good goddamn who you are, Holden Ford. If you’re a priest or a fucking saint. I will end your life, do you understand me?”

Holden tries not to whimper as the thug increases the pressure on his arm. 

“Now tell me the truth.” Gunn whispers, “I know about Boris, all right? I know he rolled over, and I know that any day, there’s going to be a warrant for my arrest. What do they have on me?”

Holden begins to shake his head, and Gunn waves a finger at the brute holding onto him. 

Fresh pain bolts through him as the man kicks him in the back of the knee, sending him down to the cold, stone floor with an agonized cry. His knees slam into the ground with dizzying force, and he tries to suck in a breath against the staggering pain; but Gunn hits him again, across the other cheek and he feels his lip split open. 

Blood gushes from Holden’s mouth as Gunn grabs him by the collar. He can feel it fill his mouth, taste the coppery, revolting tang. His vision is bright-edged, overlapping when he opens his eyes to squint up Gunn leaning over him. 

“Tell me the truth.” Gunn says, giving him a shake. “Do they have the ledgers?”

“Yes.” Holden mumbles, “They have everything, Ted. You can’t escape it.”

Gunn lets him go, and takes a step back. For the first time, his supreme confidence is shaken. He shakes his head. “I should have fucking listened to McNeil.”

“Who?” Holden whispers. 

Gunn whirls back around to punch him in the stomach. 

Black needles at the corners of Holden’s vision as he doubles over, moaning and gasping. He can’t seem to suck in a proper breath, or remember how to swallow. The pain is crippling, so intense that he quietly begs God that he’ll lose consciousness before Gunn or the thug hits him again. His arm is twisted so sharply behind his back that he wonders if it hasn’t broken yet. 

“You’re coming with me.” Gunn says, gripping him by the hair to lift his head up. “The ledgers won’t matter without the BOI’s star witness. They should really know not to put all their eggs in one basket.” 

“No, please-” Holden cries as panic tears through his chest. He writhes against the thug’s grip on him. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

“Oh, no, Father.” Gunn murmurs, cradling Holden’s tear-stained cheek in his palm. “You are of much more use to me alive. Once the BOI realizes that the Catholic Church has uncovered your indiscretions with Agent Tench, they’re going to question resting my case on your testimony, and they’re going to discard Tench faster than hot potato. What a fiasco, hm? Their case spoiled by a homosexual affair. That can’t go before the court, now can it?”

Holden jerks his chin away from Gunn’s hand. “You won’t get away with it - any of it.”

“Won’t I?” Gunn says, his mouth curling in a frigid smile. He motions for the thug to get Holden up. 

Gripping Holden by the arm, the man drags him to his feet, and reasserts his big hand to the back of his neck. 

Gunn turns to leave the chapel, but the front doors of the church swing wide open again. Blinding October sunlight stretches into the sanctuary over the wide shoulders of Jerry Brudos, flanked on either side by his armed deputies. 

“Ted, there you are.” Jerry says, spreading his hands. “You haven’t been returning my phone calls, you slippery fucking eel.”

“Jerry,” Gunn replies, his tone stilted with false diplomacy. “As you can see, I’m a mite busy.”

“What are you gonna do? Kill a priest?” Brudos demands, advancing into the chapel. “When were you gonna tell me about that little plan? After you told me about how you were going to buy my family’s mill without my knowledge and push me out of the board of directors?”

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding-” Gunn begins, holding up a hand. 

“No there fucking hasn’t. You’re trying to use me just like you use everyone in this town! You told me that I would have control of the mill once this was all over - that isn’t the fucking truth, now is it?”

Gunn lifts his chin. “Jerry, please. You, running that mill? It would have been a disaster, and you know it. You’re a bit of a blunt instrument. You thrive in this role as sheriff for that exact reason. You’re not a businessman.”

“Don’t you dare tell me what I fucking am. That mill is a part of my family's legacy in this town.” 

“This is about money, isn’t it? You can have your money-”

“You mean the money that the BOI is about to strip you of?” Jerry says, snorting a coarse laugh. “That money?”

“If you let me do what I need to, you won’t have to worry about the BOI.”

“Oh, no. I don’t need you anymore. Don’t you get that, Ted?” Jerry says, casting an encouraging glance at his deputies. “I have my own plans, and they don’t involve carving out eighty percent of the profits to you and a measly twenty for the rest of us.”

Ted snaps a glance at the thug, and Holden sees panic in his eyes. 

“Get him out of here.” He hisses. 

The thug begins to drag Holden away, but Holden resists, throwing his weight against the heavy grasp and digging his heels into the stony floor. 

“Don’t anyone fucking move!” Jerry shouts. 

Holden looks up just before the thug hits him in the face, and sees the sheriff drawing his weapon. A pair of knuckles slam into his jaw, snapping his head back. He’s on the ground before he can register the pain, before he can register that the explosion ringing in his ears is the sound of a gun firing. 

His head is spinning as he forces his eyelids open, catching fragmented glimpses of the sanctuary past tunneling darkness. He sees Jerry and his deputies advancing. He sees Gunn gripping his bloodied arm and running toward the back exit. One of the deputies fires, and the thug drops in front of Holden with a meaty thud. He’s vaguely aware of the stream of blood trickling along the grouting of the stone floor, and the shuffle of footsteps running past him; then he doesn’t have the time to wonder if the blood belongs to him or the dead man lying next to him before the blackness overtakes him. 

^^^

“What is going on?” Nancy asks from the passenger’s seat. 

Bill focuses on the dusty strip of road leading back home, and purses his lips hard around his cigarette. Dread knots in the pit of his stomach.

“Bill, please. If you know why Father Ford is leaving, tell me.”

“I don’t know.”

“I saw how you reacted. I saw his face.” She insists, “Did something happen between you?”

Bill scowls as he exhales a cloud of smoke. “No. It doesn’t have anything to do with me. I don’t know why he’s leaving. He wouldn’t tell me.”

She shakes her head, and crosses his arms around her middle. He can tell that she doesn’t believe him, but it hardly matters anymore. Nothing matters if Holden is leaving and never coming back. 

When they get home, Bill shoos Brian past the front door ahead of him, and goes into the hallway to use the telephone. He dials Wendy’s home number, and waits impatiently through the drone of three rings before she answers. 

“Hello?” Her tone is strident, stiff with worry. 

“Wendy, it’s Bill. I’ve got Holden.”

“Where the hell is he?”

“He came back here to Papermill.” Bill says, trying to keep his voice down as he hears Nancy talking to Brian in the living room. “He wanted to give one last address to the church.”

“Godammit.” Wendy says, uttering a frustrated sigh. “If I had known he was so intent upon it, I would have persuaded him to at least take the protective detail. I didn’t think he would sneak out the way that he did. We’ve been looking all over for three hours.”

“I’m sorry if I missed your calls. I was in church.”

“It’s alright. If that’s where he was, I’m glad you were there.”

“I’m about to head back over there.” Bill says, “I’m driving him straight back to D.C., and I’m going to impress upon him during the drive the importance of him remaining with the protective detail.”

“Save a bit of the tongue-lashing for me, will you?” Wendy says, archly. “I have no intention of mitigating my utter disbelief and outrage at how needlessly risky this was.”

“And you shouldn’t. I don’t think it’ll be more than an hour before we’re there.”

“Okay. See you then.”

They hang up, and Bill turns around to see Nancy hovering in the doorway. 

“Are you going to keep lying to me?” She asks. 

“I have to go.”

“Bill, stop.” She demands as he marches past her. 

She catches him by the elbow, and he whirls around to cut her a threatening glare. 

“I don’t have time for this.” He says, “I’m sorry, but I have to go.” 

“Fine! Go the way you always do.” She cries, her eyes filling with tears. “Cut me out, Bill; but I’m not stupid. Something hasn’t been right ever since you came back from Pennsylvania, and you can’t keep it from me forever.”

“I know. And we’ll talk as soon as I get back.” Bill promises, saying it even as he’s not sure he believes it. “But I have to go right now. It’s important. It’s for a case that-”

“Yes, there’s always a case.” She whispers, her arms winding around herself as a tear slides down her cheek. 

“I’m sorry.” He repeats, holding her gaze for scarcely a second before he grabs his hat, and rushes back out the door. 

Ignoring the sting of regret in his chest, he climbs into the car, and stomps hard on the accelerator. He speeds out onto the road back toward town, his fingers white-knuckled around the wheel. A sense of dread clings to his chest, his well-worn instincts ringing with fatalistic certainty that Holden returning to Papermill was a grave mistake; he’s just not certain yet to what degree. 

When he arrives at St. Stephen’s, the parking lot is empty, but the front doors of the church are standing wide open. He climbs out of the car, his chest cold with mounting dread. He runs up the steps to the front door, and comes to a halt at the threshold. Midday sunlight stretches in white reams across the sanctuary that’s vacant all except the heap of a man lying in the center of the aisle. 

“Fuck …” Bill whispers, taking a staggered step inside. 

All at once, he’s flushed with cold and heat. The dead stranger lying on the stone floor of St. Stephen’s isn’t alone. Past the bleaching sunlight, he can see a smaller figure crumpled behind the man's bulky form, the front of his white robes stained with drops of blood. 

“Holden …” The name rasps from his lips on the note of a panicked gasp. 

Bill runs down the aisle and skirts past the dead man. Sinking to his knees, he pulls Holden onto his back, and pats his pale cheeks roughly. 

“Holden, wake up.” He demands, his vision blurring with tears, “Goddamnit, Holden. Why the fuck did you do this?”

Holden groans softly, his brow puckering with a pained frown. “Bill?”

“Jesus,” BIll breathes out, relief surging through his chest. “Look at me.”

Holden’s eyelids flutter open. His eyes are glazed and unfocused until he manages to squint up at Bill, and hold his worried stare. 

“What happened?”

“It was Gunn … He knows.”

“Fuck-”

“Then Sheriff Brudos showed up. I don’t think they’re partners anymore-”

“Okay, that doesn’t matter right now. Are you hurt?” Bill asks, unfastening the front of Holden’s robes to search for any more blood or broken bones. 

“My head hurts. And my arm.”

“Come on, let's get you back to my house. Nancy can look you over.” Bill says, gently cradling Holden’s nape to lift him from the ground. 

“What about him?” Holden whispers, glancing at the dead man. 

“I’ll call Wendy as soon as we get to the house. We’ll figure it out.”

Guiding Holden’s arm around his neck, Bill rises to his feet, and hauls Holden upright beside him. They move slowly down the aisle and past the front doors of the church. Bill all but carries Holden’s shuddering limbs down the steps to where his car is parked, and bundles him into the passenger’s seat. 

Holden’s eyes have slipped shut and his body sunken down against the seat leather when Bill climbs behind the wheel. 

“Hey, don’t fall asleep.” Bill says, nudging him on the arm. “Sit up and look at me.”

Holden mutters a complaint, but forces himself upright. 

Bill pulls away from the church, and steers them back towards his house. He casts a nervous glance at Holden’s battered face, the caked blood dripping from his broken lower lip. 

“What the hell happened?” He asks. 

Holden recounts in detail how Gunn and his thug arrived at the church, followed by a less than supportive Jerry Brudos. 

“Jerry didn’t know about the sale of the mill?” Bill ponders, “That’s interesting.”

“And not surprising. Gunn uses everyone.” 

“We need to find them both right away.” Bill says, “We can’t let Gunn implement his plan, and we can’t have Brudos killing him and making this investigation all for nothing.”

“I’m sure Wendy will have a plan.” 

“Yeah, and part of it includes reminding you just how stupid this was.” Bill says, casting him a disgruntled stare. “You see now why I was so upset?”

Holden glances away, his tongue poking softly at his wounded lip. 

Bill turns his gaze back to the road as his house emerges on the horizon. When he gets closer, he sees a car he doesn’t recognize parked at an angle in front of the porch, as if it had arrived in a hurry. 

“What the hell?” He mutters. 

“Who’s car is that?” Holden asks. 

“I don’t know. Let’s go.” 

Bill gets out of the car, and circles around the hood to help Holden from the passenger’s seat, keeping a worried eye on the front door of the house. Holden loops an arm around his neck and leans close as they make their way to the porch. 

Drawing his Colt out of his holster, Bill holds the gun out in front of him. There’s no noise coming from inside the house, but he doesn’t necessarily take it as a good sign. He adjusts his sweaty grip on the handle of his gun, and pushes the screen door open with his elbow. When he leads them across the threshold, Holden’s arm tightens around his neck. 

The living room is vacant except for Brian’s toys left in the middle of the carpet. The ironing board stands discarded in the corner, plate hissing with unused steam. The upbeat cadence of music playing at low volume from the radio grates against his raw nerves. 

Heart thudding in his chest, Bill moves them around the corner to the kitchen. 

Nancy is sitting at the head of the left side of the table. With her hands folded tightly in her lap, her posture is upright and rigid with terror. Her expression is frozen into that of a scared doe about to be plastered to the hood of a car. 

Bill raises the gun, and steps swiftly past the door frame. 

The right side of the table comes into view. His gun is trained on a man who is holding Brian in his lap while his right hand loosely grasps a pistol on the tabletop. The boy appears unperplexed, his mouth tilted in a curious smile while he plays with the man’s gold pocket watch. 

_ Five-fifteen. Let’s go, boys. We’re wasting daylight.  _

Bill blinks, ice cold horror freezing in his veins. 

The man lifts his head to cast Bill a rakish smile. The scar at the corner of one murky, hazel eye is unmistakable though Bill has not seen it for nigh over six months. His dusty brown hair has gotten longer since they last saw one another, and his once groomed mustache is grown out into a thick beard. 

“Bill, you’re right on time. I was just about to tell Nancy the whole story about what happened up there on Wopsononock Mountain. The real story - not that garbage in the newspapers.”

Bill tries to draw in a breath, but he feels like he’s drowning, his lungs taking on water, his head sinking below the waves. He realizes he’s still holding a gun on the man cradling Brian in his arms. He slowly lowers it. 

“Don’t do this.” He says, his voice faltering, “It won’t change anything-”

“Sit down.”

“Tuck, please-”

“I said, sit  _ the fuck  _ down.” Tucker shouts, slamming the butt of his gun down onto the table.

Nancy startles with a quiet gasp that forces a tear down her cheek. She casts Bill a pleading gaze. “Bill, please, just do what he says.”

Bill takes an unsteady step forward. His arms suddenly feel too weak to bear Holden’s weight. 

Tuck watches him with a pleased smile as he pulls out two chairs, and sits Holden down closer to Nancy while he takes the chair just a few feet from Tucker and Brian. 

“And you brought company.” Tuck adds, observing Holden with a smirk. “I’m glad we’re all here. I’m going to tell the truth, Bill. All of it - and you can’t stop me.”

“Like hell I can’t-” 

Tucker lifts his gun from the table, and points it at Nancy. His thumb cranks the hammer back. 

“Okay, all right.” Bill acquiesces, dropping his own gun on the table and holding up his hands. 

“That’s what I thought.” Tuck says, swiping the Colt and tucking it in his own waistband. He runs an absent hand over Brian’s hair. “You’re going to sit here and listen - all of you. Because I could hurt you, or Nancy, or little Brian here. I’m a cold-blooded murderer, a monster, right?”

Bill lowers his gaze to stare at the checkered pattern of the tablecloth. His stomach knots with nausea. 

“We’re all going to find out who the monsters really are.” Tuck says, looking at each of them in turn with a thin smile. “Ready? Good, I’ll start from the beginning. March 26th - the day we received the tip that Speck was hiding out at the Shaw mansion. Two days before everything - the world as I knew it - changed …”


	22. heroes of the story and evil incarnate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth about Wopsononock Mountain is revealed.

**March, 1932**

**Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania**

  
  


The tip comes in to the Pittsburgh field office at seven o’clock in the morning on Saturday, three days after Bill, David, and Tucker arrived in town on the trail of Speck and the Hellraisers. As it turned out, the gang had left Pittsburgh a few days prior, but the three of them had decided to stick around with the resources of the BOI field office close by until a fresher tip came in. 

The Redmont Inn in the heart of Pittsburgh crouches at the foot of the Hilton across the street, the nicest lodgings that federal money can afford apparently. Bill isn’t entirely disenchanted with the accommodations. When Tuck pounds on his door before sunrise and shouts that they might have found Speck, David’s naked body is curled up beside him, and one arm wraps stubbornly around his waist to discourage him from leaving the warm sheets. 

“Just a minute!” Bill shouts, “Christ Almighty, Tuck, it’s seven in the goddamn morning!”

“Get your ass up!”

Bill disentangles himself from David’s limbs, and drops a quick kiss on his forehead. “Stay here.” 

David mumbles something, half asleep, but he quickly retreats beneath the sheets again. 

Bill stumbles into a pair of trousers, and slips out into the hallway before Tuck can beat his door down. 

“What is so urgent?”

“Tip came in to the Pittsburgh field office.” Tucker says, his hands braced on his hips as he paces energetically, his limbs barely containing raring energy. “Altoona, Bill. We are  _ this close _ .” 

“Altoona? How far is that?”

“Two hour drive at the most.” 

“Any word from the local police?”

“It just came in. I’m not sure.”

“Okay.” Bill says, rubbing his hands over his face to stifle a yawn. “I’ll get David up. We can grab some breakfast, get over to the field office, and see what the Altoona PD has.”

“All right.” Tuck says, barely containing his grin. He claps his hands as he backs down to hall toward the elevator. “Today’s the day, Bill. Richard Fucking Speck is going down!”

“I’ll celebrate once it’s over.” 

Once Tuck disappears into the elevator, Bill darts back into the hotel room, and crawls onto the bed beside the lump that is David huddled under the sheets. 

“David, wake up.” Bill murmurs, pulling the duvet back from messy, black hair. 

“What’s going on?” David groans. 

“A tip just came into the field office. They think he’s in Altoona. Two hours away. This could be over by nightfall.”

David’s eyes creep open to regard Bill with guarded relief. “You swear?”

Bill kisses him softly, meaning it as a reassurance, but it quickly goes all heated and sloppy when David’s arms wrap around his neck. He groans at the slip of David’s tongue, opening his mouth wider until their teeth gently collide. He rocks his hips down against David’s, exhaling a tortured sigh at the inadequate pressure of his cock kneading into David’s hip bone. 

David clutches him by the hair, and breaks them apart suddenly. 

“What if we don’t find it?” He asks, panting softly from exertion. “I mean, what if he hid it somewhere or-”

“Shh, stop.” Bill whispers, pressing a hand to his mouth. “It’s going to be there, and we’re gonna get it. It’s our ticket out, David. I promise, it’s gonna be worth it.”

David nods, his tongue swiping at his raw lower lip. 

Bill leans in to kiss him again, but David pushes him away. 

“We should get up before Tuck wonders.” He says, sitting up on the edge of the bed. 

Bill leans back on his heels, studying the lean curve of his back. The dusky tone of his skin is speckled with birthmarks, a precious few just above the crease of his ass that Bill has memorized like constellations. He wants to stay here and run his tongue over each and every one, but David is right. Their partner in this precarious plan is in the dark about their real reasons for taking such a risk; Tuck still thinks it’s about grievances similar to his own - the BOI bureaucracy and not getting the respect or the compensation they deserve. And it’s going to stay that way until they all go their separate ways. 

When Bill and David get down to the lobby, Tuck is waiting for them in the hotel dining area. Over a breakfast of grits and toast with black coffee, they discuss the scant details the field office had forwarded to them. 

“Wopsononock Mountain.” Tucker says, taking a sip of his coffee, “It’s pretty secluded from what I understand. Not a lot of people living in the area because it’s difficult to access. It makes for the perfect hiding spot.”

“That’s good. Away from civilization.” Bill remarks. 

“The last thing we want is innocent bystanders or God forbid, the press.” Tucker says. His leg is bouncing impatiently as he pulls out his cigarettes and lights up. He shifts his focused stare to David who has been subdued throughout breakfast. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Dave?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.”

“Of course not.”

“Then why do you look like you’re about to shit your pants?”

“I’m not-”

“You better not be having second thoughts.” Tuck says, leaning forward to catch David’s hesitant, dark eyes. “It isn’t just you in this, boy. It’s all of us - me and Bill, too. We cannot have a fucking weak link, or else-”

“Tuck, leave him alone.” Bill interjects, “He’s fine.”

David glances away, rubbing a hand over his jaw. 

“Right, David?” Bill presses. 

“Right.” David mutters. 

Tucker leans back in his chair, satisfied with Bill’s reassurances. “So, what are we gonna do about the locals?”

“It’s a federal case; we have jurisdiction. They’re just running support.” Bill says, “We’ll make it clear from the start that even if they find it before we do, it’s our evidence. We control the chain of custody. Once they help us wrangle Speck’s men, their part in the arrests is over.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“Right. Like I said, I won’t be celebrating until it’s over.”

Tuck puffs on his cigarette, and casts a distant gaze at the window where the town of Pittsburgh is beginning to awaken beneath the wash of morning sunlight. 

The three of them haven’t spoken in any detail about what will happen once it’s over. Conversations on the topic are conjecture, flights of fancy, daydreams, but nothing of real substance; those discussions are reserved for Bill and David, under the drape of bed sheets, their voices whispering back and forth about California, and if that isn’t far enough, Mexico or the Caribbean. This morning, despite months of planning, Bill can’t imagine himself being anything but a BOI agent, but he knows his life is about to change dramatically. Glancing over at David’s stoic profile, unbroken except for the nervous pinch of his teeth against his lower lip, he prays he’s making the right choice. 

^^^

The Altoona Police Department is abuzz with anticipation when Bill, David, and Tucker arrive later that morning. A uniformed officer shows them to Mark Ocasek’s office where the police captain amiably waves them in and offers them each a cigarette. 

“I tell you, when I woke up this morning I did not think I’d be hearing that Richard Speck was in town.” Ocasek says, “Nothing much really happens around here.”

“I’m sure that’s what Speck was counting on.” Bill says. 

“The tip came in from a Mrs. Wilma Jefferson.” David says, consulting his notes that he’d taken down back at the field office, “ She says she’s neighbors with William Shaw, and she hasn’t seen any of them family in days. She heard what she thought was a scream so she sent her husband over to investigate, and he thinks he saw some of Speck’s boys. What can you tell us about Shaw?”

“Richest man in town.” Ocasek says, “Owns an oil company. Him, his wife, and his two daughters live there along with some staff. From what I understand, Speck worked for Shaw at one time before deciding he was more suited for bank robbing.”

“Interesting. So he goes from robbing banks to a more personal target.” Bill mutters. “What’s his endgame?”

“Lay low until it blows over?” Tuck shrugs, “Who cares? He’s at the end of his rope. If he really is in that mansion, his little cross-country jaunt is about to come to an end.”

“I’m willing to put up whatever manpower you need.” Ocasek says. 

“Good. We’ll run point. This is a federal case, and Director Hoover won’t settle for anything less than a collar.” Bill says. 

“I understand.” Ocasek diplomatically spread his hands. “I have no intention of getting in your way. We’re just here to help put an end to that crazy bastard’s reign of terror.” 

Bill figures they’ve gotten lucky with Speck deciding to hole up in a place like Altoona. In a bigger city like Pittsburgh, the local cops are self-serving, blustering fellows chasing after glory; he’s seen more than one operation go south because the chief of police couldn’t get out of his own way. Ocasek seems amicable enough, and willing to let them handle the bulk of the confrontation at the Shaw mansion. 

By midday, they’ve assembled a group of twenty officers in addition to the three of them and Ocasek. According to their reconnaissance during the last six months, Speck has about eight men following him, giving them a double advantage if not a little more. Additionally, Ocasek opens the gun safe to pull out stronger fire power than standard issue handguns. 

Standing in the police department bullpen, Bill announces that, despite the rifles, they should start with a softer approach. Speck has innocent hostages in the house that they’d prefer to extract alive and unscathed if possible. Opening fire blindly on the mansion is a last resort. 

Once everyone has been briefed, they load up five trucks of officers and ammunition, and start the drive over to Wopsononock Mountain. 

Bill, David, Tuck, and Ocasek share a car with the police captain behind the wheel. Bill sits in the passenger’s seat, smoking his cigarette and watching the densely forested mountain rise up beyond the fringes of town. A sense of dread rests low in his chest, shutting out the energetic anticipation he’d felt this morning. He hadn’t been expecting hostages.

“What are the chances he comes out on his own?” Ocasek asks, nervously, voicing Bill’s concerns. 

“Depends.” Bill says.

“On?”

“On how smart he is.” Tuck says, leaning forward to fold his elbows against the back of the front bench seat.

Ocasek casts Bill a worried glance. “Smart?”

“Yeah, a smart man would realize he’s surrounded and do some risk assessment.” Bill says, “Of course, that kind of logic only applies if you’re scared to die.”

“And Speck isn’t?”

“I’ve never seen that unhinged son of a bitch do anything logical.” Tuck says, patting Ocasek roughly on the shoulder, “My friend here is being polite, Cap.”

“And my friend is a little trigger happy.” Bill says, shooting Tuck a narrowed glance in the rear view mirror. “We can do this without bloodshed if we do it right. There’s innocent people in that house.”

“Are there? There’s been no ransom call or note. I’m a realist not an optimist.” Tuck says, leaning back in his seat with a grunt. 

Bill takes a hard drag of his cigarette, and squints at the road ahead. 

“What does he mean?” Ocasek whispers. 

“He means that the Shaws are probably already dead.” David murmurs, the soft cadence of his voice interjecting into the conversation for the first time. 

Ocasek swallows hard, but he doesn’t pursue that remark. His fingers are white-knuckled around the wheel as they draw closer and closer to the foot of the mountain. 

When they reach the access road, Bill finishes off the last of his cigarette, and pitches it out the window. He leans forward to brace himself against the dash of the car as the terrain grows slanted and uneven. The four other cars are spaced out behind them, taking the narrow road slowly and as quietly as they can manage. 

The Shaw estate is easily recognizable from a distance. The mansion is a three-story, white brick Colonial with rows of supporting columns and two balconies, a plethora of shuttered windows looking out from every vantage point at the manicured lawn carved out of the forest. A barn and fenced in area house half a dozen horses who are grazing nonchalantly in the March sunlight. At first glance, the place is quietly serendipitous, an opulent retreat tucked back in this pocket of untamed wilderness. 

The first sign that anything has gone awry are the chickens wandering aimlessly across the neatly tended front lawn, several yards off from their coop where the door had been carelessly left open. 

“Pull off here.” Bill says as they get closer to the gated driveway. 

Ocasek parks, and the rest of the entourage creeps to a stop behind them. They all get out and assemble several yards from the gate so that their position is screened by the pines. Through the broad trunks and fulsome needles, the front door of the mansion is visible. 

“I think we should start with a welfare check.” Bill says, “See if we can’t get proof of life before we start in on a tactical assault or make demands.”

“You mean send someone to the door?” Ocasek asks. 

“Yeah, two uniforms should be good.” 

“Who’s going to volunteer for that?” 

“Nobody. I’ll pick them.” Tuck says, shouldering past Ocasek toward the group of uniformed officers. 

Ocasek twists his hat between his hands, but doesn’t protest. Bill claps him in the shoulder before joining Tuck and David in front of the officers. 

“You and you.” Tuck says, motioning seemingly at random at two uniformed officers at the front of the group. “Go and knock on the door. Make it look like a welfare check. Let’s see if they’ll open the door and show us if the Shaws are unharmed or not.”

The two officers share anxious glances before Tuck impatiently snaps his fingers, and pulls his pocket watch out of his vest. He flips it open, and flashes the shiny, glass face at them. “Five-fifteen. Let’s go, boys. We’re burning daylight.”

The two officers scurry past him toward the gate. 

“All right, let’s get into position.” Tuck says, taking charge before Ocasek can open his mouth. “I want this place surrounded from every corner. Go in pairs.”

Everyone splits off, and cuts through the woods toward the mansion. 

Bill and David take up position facing the front of the house, tucked behind a massive pine tree. Crouching down, they watch as the two officers approach the door. 

“I don’t know about this, Bill.” David whispers. 

“Calm down.” Bill says. Out of habit, he takes his Colt from his shoulder holster and checks the mag. “We’ve done this together over a dozen times. This time is no different.”

“Yeah. Except it is.”

Bill shoots David a glance, but his face is turned stoically toward the mansion. 

One of the officers pounds on the door. “Mr. Shaw? Altoona Police Department. We’re just checking to make sure you’re alright. Mrs. Jefferson is worried about you.”

Bill holds his breath as the words echo across the clearing and die away into silence. The house is motionless. 

The two officers wait for a minute before knocking again. “Mr. Shaw? If you’re in there, just let us know you’re okay.”

Again, no answer. 

One of the officers paces away from the door, and peers into the windows. He turns to his partner, shaking his head. 

They knock and call out a few more times before the uniform turns to the treeline where Bill and Ocasek are crouched. Bill waves a hand for them to come back. 

“They’re not opening up.” Bill says, grimly. “Fuck, Tuck is probably right.”

“What should we do?” Ocasek asks, “Kick down the door?”

“You have the bullhorn?” Bill asks. 

“Yeah, in the truck.”

“Go get it.”

Ocasek darts in a crouched position back toward the road. 

Bill reaches into his pocket for his flask, and takes a swig. Despite the cool, spring breeze bustling through the shaded forest, he’s sweating profusely. He had little faith the Shaws were still breathing, but now that he’s quite certain, he knows Speck isn’t going to come out easily. He has nothing left to lose, and the man is crazy enough to think he can win a fight in which he’s out-numbered and out-gunned. 

The two officers make their way back to the edge of the clearing. 

“Did you see anything?” Bill asks. 

“No, there’s no movement inside.” The officer replies. “If they’re in there, they either are hiding or are up on the second or third floor.”

Ocasek returns with the bullhorn, and passes it off to Bill. 

“What are you going to do?” He asks. 

“Try to reason with him.” Bill says, rising to his feet. 

Lifting the bullhorn, he announces, “Richard Speck, this is the US Bureau of Investigation. We know you’re in there, and we have this place surrounded. Come out peacefully, and nobody has to get hurt.”

His amplified voice echoes across the yard, and is greeted with silence. 

“If you have Mr. Shaw and his family in there, let them go in good faith that this doesn’t have to end in a bloodbath!” 

Bill’s gaze flicks toward the window on the third story where a curtain pulls back. He sees the flash of a rifle barrel just before the shot splits the air like lighting. When he dives down, he hears the bullet whiz past his head with alarming proximity. 

“Shit!” He mutters, shifting back behind the tree where David and Ocasek are waiting. 

“I don’t think he’s coming out.” David remarks. 

“Fucking madman.” Bill growls, “Begging me to put a bullet between his eyes. And I just might-”

“Agent Tench!”

They all freeze as Richard Speck’s voice carries across the distance between the mansion and the treeline. 

“Agent Tench, why don’t you put that bullhorn down, and come out here and face me like a man!”

Bill scowls, and tosses aside the horn. He begins to rise to his feet, but David grabs him by the arm. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Ending this before he hurts anyone else.” Bill says, “He wants a shot at me so badly, he can have it. The moment he sticks his head out that window, I’m putting a bullet in it.” He turns to Ocasek who is crouched down with a rifle in his hand. “Give that to me.”

Ocasek hands over the Winchester, and Bill tucks the stock to his shoulder. Rising from behind the tree, he brings the sights to bear on the third floor balcony where the door is easing open. His finger strokes the trigger, but the figure stepping out onto the balcony isn’t alone. Speck holds a young woman dressed scarcely in a white nightgown in front of him as he moves out onto the balcony. He has a .44 magnum revolver pressed to her temple. 

“Is this what you wanted?” Speck shouts, his eyes barely visible behind the disheveled, blond curtain of the Shaw girl’s hair. “Proof of life?”

“Let her go! Nobody has to get hurt.” Bill replies, keeping the rifle aimed steadily at the balcony. 

“That’s funny coming from the BOI! I know you’d much rather gun me down than take me to jail, Agent Tench. That’s what you have planned for me, right? A blaze of glory? A bloodbath for the newspapers to bask in? You’re the hero, and I’m evil incarnate!”

“No! If you lay down your weapons now, everyone walks away alive!”

“And if you don’t lay down your weapons and leave us the fuck alone, everyone is going to end up exactly like Jane, here!”

Bill’s hands are sweaty around the rifle, but his index is ready on the trigger. His pulse thuds, a sick and dreadful beat; he knows he can’t stop it as Speck walks the girl to the edge of the balcony. Instead, he braces himself because he knows he’ll have only a few seconds to get a clean shot.

The crack of the .44 going off explodes into the silence of the clearing. 

Jane’s head snaps to one side, a plume of red bursting through the opposite temple. Her body goes limp, and Speck shoves her forward. Lifeless, like a fragile porcelain doll, she tumbles over the balcony railing and falls to the pristine grass below. 

Bill doesn’t watch her fall. He aims at Speck’s retreating back, and pulls the trigger. 

Speck stumbles, grabbing at his shoulder. Bill glimpses a pair of hands pulling him back into the house just before the door swings shut behind him. 

“Fuck!” He shouts. 

It’s all the lament he’s allowed before the rifle reemerges from the third story window, joined by two more on that level and another on the second story. He dives behind the tree as the clearing erupts with the cacophony of weapon’s fire. 

“Did you get him?” Ocasek shouts over the explosion of gunpowder. 

“Barely!” 

Bill climbs back to his knees, and brings the rifle back up to his cheek. His marksmanship skills aren’t what they used to be, he thinks. During his Army days, he would have dropped Speck with a headshot in two seconds. If he wasn’t so interested in what Speck has hidden away in this mansion, maybe his mind would be clearer. 

He doesn’t have time for the proprietary guilt at the sight of young Jane’s body lying in the middle of a battleground. He steadies his aim on the Hellraisers in the windows, and manages to pick off two of them before the gunfire ceases again. 

Gunsmoke drifts through the afternoon sunlight. Bill can hear himself breathing heavily over the ringing in his ears. David and Ocasek are crouched beside him with their guns held on the mansion. No one moves for several moments. 

“What now?” Ocasek whispers, sounding shaken. 

Suddenly, the side door of the house swings open, and a young man bolts toward the treeline. Bill swings the rifle to follow his trajectory, and fires without hesitation. The kid drops, tumbling down the slight incline into a heap of lifeless limbs. 

“Speck, your men are jumping ship!” He shouts, edging around the pine tree to peer up at the balcony. 

When no answer returns, Bill turns to Ocasek. “Let’s move in. Most of them are either dead or wounded.”

Ocasek nods, and motions to the next pair of officers ten feet away from them. 

They wait for the message to circulate around to all of the positioned policemen. The house is quiet as Bill leads the advance. David and Ocasek flank him, followed by four other officers positioned by the front of the house. Across the yard, he can see Tuck leading another quarter of the police along the left side of the mansion. 

On the porch, they crowd on either side of the front door. Bill reaches over to unlatch the handle, and push it gently inward. 

“We’re coming in. Everyone put your weapons down!” 

His order is greeted by gunfire, the high-pitched whine of a pistol. They duck away from the door as the frame is peppered with bullets. Bill holds up his hand to Ocasek who is lifting his gun. It isn’t long before the gunman wastes the remainder of his mag on empty air and wallpaper. In that interval of silent reload, Bill hunches in the doorway with the rifle, quickly surveys the entryway where two men’s bodies are crumpled, and glimpses the lingering bank robber huddled behind the sofa. A single shot pierces the man’s forehead and topples him to the carpet with a thud. 

Bill rises to his feet, ejecting the spent shell from the rifle. 

In the back of the house, a brief scuffle and the exchange of fire between handguns ensues before enduring silence settles. 

Bill motions for David, Ocasek, and the officers to follow him inside. 

When they move through the entryway and into the living room, signs of the gang’s presence are plastered everywhere. Empty liquor bottles, broken glass, spent cigarettes, and dirty plates crowd the tables and floors. The windows and curtains are pulled shut, locking in the stench of, body odor, cigarette smoke, blood, and death. The once pristine sofas are stained and dappled with cigarette burns; but the ruined furniture, smashed decor, and paintings slashed to tatters on the walls are only a miniscule measure of the horror that must have unfolded in the days and perhaps weeks prior to their arrival. 

Mr. Shaw is hanging by a rope from the ceiling fan. His belly is cut open, entrails stringing free in bulging, bloody ropes. The two maids are stuffed in a closet, hands and feet tied, foreheads gaping with the bullets that ended their lives. The butler, a colored man whose white shirt is russet with day’s old blood spatter, is crumpled near the side door where his mangled face suggests death by blunt force. 

Ocasek runs back out the front door, and Bill can hear him vomiting on the front porch. 

“Jesus.” David whispers. 

Bill realizes he’s gripping David’s elbow. 

Down the hallway, Tuck exits one of the bedrooms, and pulls the door shut behind him with blanched cheeks and glazed eyes. 

“You don’t want to go in there.” He says. 

“What the hell happened here?” Bill whispers. 

“Speck was madder than we thought.” Tuck says, “I think all of these people have been dead for days.”

As they move quietly through the rest of the house, the brewing chaos of Speck’s final descent into insanity becomes startlingly clear in the stiff bodies of some of his own men. One of them was left facedown in the stairwell while another is tied to a chair in the kitchen. Bloody knives and heaps of dried washcloths next to a bucket of water paint a vivid picture of the last days inside the Shaw mansion. 

“I think we’re looking at a mutiny.” David says, as the three of them stand over the bank robber’s slashed throat. “It must have sent him over the edge. Jesus.”

Disinterested in the unfolding drama, Tuck nods his head for them to follow him. “Come on, let’s keep moving. I haven’t seen any sign of the money yet.”

On the third and final floor, the churning nausea in Bill’s belly threatens to boil over. 

In the master bedroom, the elder daughter of Mr. Shaw met her demise with her wrists and ankles tied to the four posts of the bed. The white sheets are painted with crusted blood, and her body is gray and bloated. The battered damage on her face is only secondary to the utter horror of her mutilated genitals and amputated breasts.

Bill feels little victory when he staggers across the hallway to the sunroom that has access to the third floor balcony. 

Slumped on the sofa, Richard Speck has his arms stretched out on either side of him. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows to expose the rivers of blood gushing from the garish slashes cut vertically up his wrists by the pocketknife clutched loosely in his right hand. His head is tilted back, eyes open to the ceiling in a motionless, cold stare. There’s no agony on his face, only surrender. 

When Bill draws closer, he assesses that Speck’s shoulder had sustained but a flesh wound from the off-kilter rifle shot. The nausea in his belly squirms, and he presses a hand to his mouth. 

David touches him gently on the back, garnering a startled grunt from his throat. His eyes are fuzzy as he meets David’s gentle, worried gaze. 

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” David murmurs. 

They all reconvene downstairs where Ocasek has managed to martial his nausea. He’s muttering orders to each of the uniformed officers to get emergency vehicles up here so that they can take the victims out of the house respectfully. They’ve covered most of the viscera up with whatever sheets they could find in the linen closets and opened the windows, but the horrid stench of death and decay lingers like acid at the back of Bill’s throat. 

“Any sign of their stash?” Tuck asks, his expression pinched with resentment as he paces past the two officers lowering Mr. Shaw from the ceiling fan. 

“Nothing yet.” Ocasek says. 

“It has to be around here somewhere.” 

“We’ll find it.”

“Well, you better. It’s federal money.” Tuck snaps, marching away with his fingers scraping through his hair. 

Ocasek casts Bill and David a querying gaze. 

“He’s fine.” Bill assures. He nudges his chin at David in a silent order to stay with Ocasek while he follows Tuck out into the hallway. 

“Hey, hey,” He hisses, catching up with Tuck below a crooked painting of a ship at sea that had somehow survived the destruction. 

“What?” Tuck demands, whirling around to cast him a glare. The corner of his eyes pinch where the old scar he’d earned from a face-full of shrapnel in Germany defies the pink flush climbing his throat. 

“You need to calm down before Ocasek gets suspicious.”

“Well, it’s not going to fucking matter if we can’t find that money, Bill. Six months, all right? Six months chasing this piece of shit across the country, and for what? I’m sick of accolades and pats on the back. I wouldn’t have signed up for this if I thought that’s all I was getting at the end of it.”

“He put it somewhere. He was a paranoid fuck. We’ll find it.”

Tuck twists his shoulder away as Bill attempts to offer physical reassurance. He paces in a tight circle, raking both hands through his hair. 

“Just take a deep breath-”

“Take a deep breath?” Tuck echoes, crowding closer to glare into Bill’s eyes. “Take a deep breath, Bill? Is that your advice?” 

“Yes.” Bill says, tersely, holding up both hands. “Go outside and get some air. I’m not going to fight with you when you’re like this.”

Tuck scowls, his nostrils flaring with an incensed breath, but he takes a staggered step back. 

Their gazes hold, a silent battle elapsing in silence until Tuck turns on his heel and strides to the door at the end of the hall that leads out onto the back porch. 

Bill watches him go, pressing his thumb and forefinger to his eyes. The pressure in his chest balloons as he tries to take his own advice, but blood and destruction flashes behind his eyes, the dead bodies of the Shaw family melding into old memories of his fallen comrades left to rot in German trenches. 

Abruptly, the mansion and everything inside of it feels distant and two-dimensional, the cobbled scraps of some storybook that he’d told himself he was living inside when in reality, the bombs and gunfire are still exploding around him. He can feel the dirt between his fingers, the sweat on his face, the smoke stinging his eyes. He leans back against the wall, but the painting of the ship facing a stormy sea looks like part of a dream. 

“Bill! Bill, we have a live one!” Tuck’s shout interrupts the unraveling fragments of memory. 

He shakes himself, rubbing both hands over his face.  _ Wake up. Wake the fuck up.  _

“Bill, hurry!”

He runs down the hall before he can assure himself that he has two feet firmly planted in reality, inside the Shaw mansion. He’s home. Far from home, but not so far as Germany. 

Pushing past the back door, Bill emerges onto the porch to see Tuck chasing after a young man who is making a break for the sloping hill behind the house. Tuck is screaming at the kid to stop running, but the last remaining Hellraiser bounds like a scared jackrabbit into the treeline. 

Bill runs to catch up with Tuck who pauses at the top of the slope to pull out his gun. The pistol fires, and Bill hears the wounded cry from below. 

“Did you get him?” He pants as he reaches Tuck. 

“I think so.” Tuck says, nodding for Bill to follow him into the ravine. 

Dense trees had forbidden the kid from rolling much further than ten feet from where Tuck’s shot hit him. He’s lying back against the base of an oak with his leg pulled to his chest and his hands wrapped around his bleeding shin. 

As he and Tuck approach, Bill can tell that the last of Speck’s entourage is just a kid, perhaps no more than eighteen years old. His dark hair is plastered to his forehead and cheeks by cold sweat, and his wide, dark eyes blink up at the two BOI agents in abject terror. 

“Please … please, don’t kill me.” He whimpers, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. 

“We’re not gonna kill you, son.” Tuck says, putting his gun back into his holster. “You’re the last person alive who knows where that money is.”

“Wh-what?” The boy shivers. 

“You heard me.” Tuck says, crouching down beside the young man. “The money from all those damn bank robberies. Where did Speck hide it?” 

Bill casts a glance back up at the hill where he can see the roof of the house cresting the ravine. If anyone had heard the shot or noticed the pursuit, they haven’t come running just yet; but they will. 

“If I tell you, you won’t hurt me?” The boy is crying now. 

“No.” Tuck says. 

“What about my leg? It hurts real bad.”

“We’ll get you a doctor just as soon as you tell us where the money is.” 

The boy sniffs, choking on tears. “You promise?”

Bill whirls back around, yanking his gun from his holster. Dropping down beside the kid, he seizes him by the jaw, and shoves the barrel of the Colt into his trembling mouth. 

“I can promise you one thing, kid. If you don’t fucking open your mouth and tell us where the money is, I’m going to paint this tree with your brains. Got it?”

The boy sobs quietly around the pressure of the gun pressed to his palate. He nods his head vehemently, opening tear-stained eyes to cast Bill an imploring stare. 

Bill pulls the gun back, and waves it impatiently. “All right, out with it.”

Tuck casts him a grim smile which Bill ignores. 

“There’s a cabin that way.” The boy says, hiccuping a sob as he nudges his chin to their left. “It used to belong to the staff before they expanded the house, I think. Speck was worried about a mutiny so he had some of us bury the money under the floor. It’s not far. I can show you.” 

“I think we can find it on our own.” Bill says, rising to his feet. 

“Please,” The kid whispers as Bill adjusts his grip on his gun, “I told you everything I know.”

“Yeah, and you followed that murderous psychopath all across this country for the last six months, and you stayed loyal to him even after he butchered every single person in that house.” Bill says, jabbing a finger up toward the mansion, “Did you help him, huh? Did you help him carve that poor girl to pieces?” 

“No, it wasn’t me! Please, I didn’t-”

The gun bucks in Bill’s hand. In the utter silence of the forest, the deafening bang reverberates through the trees and toward the open sky. A flock of birds startle and take flight from the towering branches, screaming in terror as they circle away across the cloudless blue. The kid's face is paralyzed into a flinch of fear for all eternity, divided singly by the line of red dribbling down his forehead and along the right side of his nose.

“Shit.” Tuck says, his mouth tilting humorlessly as he rises to his feet.

“What?” Bill snaps, shoving his Colt back into his holster. “You were gonna do it yourself, weren’t you? Can’t have any witnesses.”

“‘Course not.” Tuck says, raising his hands. “I just didn’t think you had it in you.”

“How long have we known each other?”

“Not long enough, apparently.” 

They walk silently back up the ravine together. When they reach the house, Tuck has a story prepared for Ocasek and the others who are drawn to the back porch by the sound of gunfire - something about Tuck wrestling the lone Hellraiser to the ground, and Bill being forced to shoot the kid in his defense. 

Bill hardly hears it. Their voices overlap like distant ocean waves, a dull roar numbed by the dawning realization in his mind that he’s marched beyond the gates of no return. He looks at David, and centers his thoughts as well as he can on their secretive plans for the future. In a few weeks, the events of this terrible day will be far behind him, buried in the sand on a Caribbean beach. 

^^^

Bill, Tuck, and David spend the rest of the evening helping Ocasek and the hoard of police and emergency responders that arrive at the Shaw mansion clean up the destruction and take account of the dead bodies. According to their intel, all of Speck’s men are accounted for, all of them deceased. 

The sun is going down by the time they depart Wopsononock Mountain. Ocasek offers to buy them dinner, but they politely decline, citing little appetite after the day’s events. 

Back at the hotel, they gather in Bill’s room where Tuck recounts to David that they have the location of the money. 

“What’s the plan?” David asks. 

“We can’t go back there tonight.” Tuck says, “The clean-up crew is probably still working, and the newspaper jackals have gotten wind of the story by now. I say we go back tomorrow night and dig it up.” 

“Then what?” 

“Then we report that the money was never found.” Bill says. 

“It’s perfect, actually. I’d like a brief visit to Hell to shake Speck’s hand.” Tuck says, shaking his head. “He was so paranoid and crazy that he completely eliminated the chain of custody problem.”

David is quiet from his position in the recliner in the corner of the room. Bill can see his hand slightly shake as he brings his cigarette to his lips. 

“I figured you’d be leaping for joy.” Tuck says, waving a jagged hand at David, “Fuck, David, they passed you up for that promotion same as me.”

“I know.” David murmurs. 

“Shit, you never know when to ask for what you want.” Tuck says, “You gotta learn to stand up and use your voice, Dave. I know you wouldn’t even be doing this if it wasn’t for me and Bill.” 

“That isn’t true.” 

“No? Then why have you spent all day looking like you’re about to bolt? Do we have something to worry about?” 

“What are you implying?” Bill asks, rising from his bed to meet Tuck’s distrustful glare. 

“I’m not so sure he can handle this, Bill. I mean, shit - what if we do this, and then he turns around and squeals?” 

“He’s not going to squeal.”

“Damnit, Tuck.” David says, suddenly, rising to his feet. “I’m not going to turn on you! How could you even think that?”

Tuck takes a step back, grunting a chuckle. “There you go, Dave. Using your voice.” 

“That’s right, I am using it. I’m using it to tell you to back the fuck down and stop accusing me of things you can’t prove - and never will be able to because they aren’t true.” 

Silence settles over the room. 

Tuck’s mouth twitches, his hands curling into fists at his sides. His short fuse is sparking dangerously low. 

“Okay,” Bill says, holding up a diplomatic hand to each of them. “Everyone calm down. It’s been a long fucking day, and we’re all exhausted. I say we get a good night’s rest, and we’ll all feel better in the morning.” 

Tuck looks ready to argue, but he marches out of the hotel room instead. The door slams shut on his heels, and Bill lets out a heavy breath. 

“What is wrong with him?” David asks. 

“Nothing. He’s just being Tuck.”

“I don’t understand how you’ve been friends with him all of these years.” David says, his brow puckering into a hurt frown. “He hates me.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Yes, he does. And it’s because of you, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he never hated me until we got close.” 

Bill wanders over to where David is restlessly rocking on his heels, and wraps both arms around his waist. 

“What? He’s jealous?” He says, scoffing quietly. 

David meets his gaze somberly, running both hands over Bill’s chest. “Yes. You were his before you were mine.”

“I was never his. We never-”

“I know. Not like that.” David murmurs, shaking his head. “But someone like Tuck isn’t happy until he has something - someone - all to himself.”

“Pretty soon he isn’t going to have me at all.” Bill mutters, nuzzling a kiss into David’s throat. “So don’t worry about it.”

David resists for barely a second before succumbing to the warmth of Bill’s mouth on his pulse. 

Bill pulls him down onto the bed, and slowly strips his clothes away to retread well-memorized skin, planes, and curves of his body with mouth and hands. In this way, David always makes him feel real again, grounded to the present reality. The hysteria of the day melts away into a distant buzz; Bill gets lost in the enveloping heat of his body and David’s husky moans. 

^^^

The next day is spent at the Altoona Police Department, putting in their formal statements on the matter. Shepard calls from D.C. to get a progress report, and is none too pleased by the fact that Speck’s ill-gotten treasure is missing. 

“It’s twenty-thousand dollars of federal money. It has to be somewhere.” He gripes. 

“We’ll keep looking, sir.” Bill assures. 

“It’s not going to look good for us if we got the robber but not the money.” Shepard says, “It’s bad enough that bastard took the cowardly way out.”

“Yes, sir.” 

“That can’t go in the papers, Bill.” Shepard says, grimly. “For all intents and purposes, you shot him - you killed him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bill has a bad taste in his mouth when he hangs up with the SAC. He tries to tell himself that none of it is going to matter in a few weeks. It shouldn’t make a difference to him whether he killed Speck or Speck killed himself. All that matters is getting the money and leaving with David. Even so, his stomach aches when he goes back to Ocasek and informs the chief of police that he’ll need to rewrite his statement. 

He ignores the cold fist of apprehension in his gut that evening as he, Tuck, and David make the drive back over to Wopsononock Mountain under the cover of impending darkness. Tuck drives while Bill sits in the passenger’s seat watching the fading pinks and purples of sunset lapse across the sky. He shoots a nervous glance at the rear view mirror, and glimpses David’s taut expression. He manages a faint smile. 

The Shaw mansion appears like a desolate ghost from among the trees. The gate is cordoned off though the police and emergency responders are long gone, leaving behind only remnants of the tragedy that occurred here. 

A stiff breeze bustles through the trees, inciting a low groan and rattle of bark and leaves that heightens the tension bundled in Bill’s neck. The smell of rain is sweet and damp in the air, and a thick cloud drifts across the milky moonlight. 

“The boy said the cabin was that way.” Tuck says, motioning in the general direction as they get out of the car and pull the shovels from the trunk. “He said it wasn’t far.”

“Good, let’s go.” David says, “The sooner we get out of here the better.”

“What’s wrong, Dave?” Tuck asks, his mouth tilted in a bemused snicker. “This place give you the creeps?”

“A lot of people died here.” David says over his shoulder. 

“You believe in ghosts? You think the Shaws are watching us right now? Or Speck? Hell, I wish Speck’s spirit would show up so I could tell him to go fuck himself one last time.” Tucker says, striding past David into the trees. 

David hangs back until Bill reaches his side. They walk together through the undergrowth while Tucker marches ahead, whistling a cheerful tune into the shifting breeze. 

“I don’t believe in ghosts.” David says, low. “But I do believe in something like what happened here leaving a scar on the universe.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Bill says, trying just as hard to convince himself as David. “Pretty soon we’re gonna be far away from here and what happened.”

Suddenly, David stops walking, and Bill gets several feet ahead of him before he realizes he’s alone. He stops, and turns around to see David gripping the shovel in his hands and staring at the ground. 

“What’s wrong?” Bill asks, walking back to him. 

“Nothing, I just …” David murmurs, peeking back up at Bill, his eyes faintly shimmering in the pale moonlight. “I haven’t thought about what I’m going to say to Hannah when I see her for the last time. I’ve tried not to think about it, but now I’m not sure what I can say to convince her that what we have isn’t wrong.”

“You can’t tell her what we have.” Bill says, “That’s the problem, David. The whole world is wrong about us.”

David scoffs, softly, and nods his head. “I’m glad I found you, Bill. I’ve been lost my whole life.”

Bill briefly touches his cheek before nodding for him to follow. “Come on. We’re falling behind.” 

They don’t speak again as they lengthen their strides to catch up with Tuck. 

Less than half a mile from the mansion, the cabin emerges from the thick forest, a forgotten structure of rough-hewn boards, disintegrating mortar, and a wood-shingled roof that’s caving in beneath the weight of a fallen tree branch. The cabin is accompanied by an out-house on the verge of collapse, and a fenced-in area which had once housed some type of garden or crop. 

When Tuck nudges the front door open, the rusted hinges protest shrilly into the silence. David and Bill shuffle in behind him to survey the cramped room stripped of any fixtures. Bill pulls out his lighter, and flips it open to offer scant illumination. 

“The kid said that they buried it under the floor.” Tuck says. 

“Which room?” David asks, pushing the door open to the other room and squinting inside. 

“Didn’t say. I guess we’ll have to dig the whole thing up. Crazy bastard probably divided it up for all we know.” 

“Great.” David mutters, “We’ll be here all night.”

“You wanna be a rich man or not?” Tuck asks, driving his shovel into the packed dirt at his feet. 

“It’ll go faster if we all dig in different spots.” Bill says, shouldering past David into the second, larger room of the cabin. 

He starts digging at random in the center of the room, figuring he’ll work his way outward. There’s no furniture or landmarks inside the cabin to indicate where Speck might have buried the money, and there’s no such thing as logic when it comes to the man’s thought process. All they can do is dig until they strike gold. 

The first hour is almost devoid of conversation. The scrape of the shovels and the earthy patter of falling dirt fills the silence that’s punctuated by their exerted panting.

Bill pauses to take a swig from his flask, and scowls at the irritated callus forming in his palm. David keeps shoveling, his back half-turned to Bill and his head tilted down in concentration. In the dim light of the cabin, his profile is rigid as if carved from stone, and the image of his lover digging up their future strikes Bill hard in the breastbone. 

_ This is it. The day they have been talking about for months has finally arrived.  _

But the thought comes with a flash of his farmhouse back in Papermill, Nancy awaiting his return, hating him and loving him in equal turns. Like David, he hasn’t thought about what he’ll say to her on their last day together, or if he’ll just leave that house never to return, no warning, no note, no apologies. Either way, she won’t forgive him. 

Pushing the thought from his mind, Bill takes up the shovel with fresh determination. 

Half an hour later, Tucker pokes his head into the room. 

“Anything?”

“Nothing yet.” Bill says, swiping the back of his hand over his perspiring forehead. 

“Shit. That son of a bitch really went to a lot of trouble to hide it.” Tucker says, his brow pinching with a frustrated scowl. “I’m going outside to take a piss.”

“Okay.” 

“Don’t run off with the stash while I have my cock out.”

“Fuck off.” 

Tucker grunts a laugh, and swaggers out of the cabin. 

Bill shakes his head, and keeps digging.

No more than a minute later, the metallic thud of David’s shovel hitting something hard infiltrates his focus on the broken dirt at his feet. He looks up as David takes a step back from the spot where he had been digging, and drops the shovel to the ground. 

“What? What is it?” Bill asks, his chest bursting with a galloping pulse. 

David turns slowly to look at him, his mouth moving wordlessly until he manages. “I think … I think this is it.”

Bill casts aside his own shovel, and marches past the empty pits they’ve already dug out to David’s side. Two feet into the ground, the dented, steel surface of what could be a trunk lid emerges from the dirt. 

Dropping to his knees, Bill rakes dirt back from the box with his trembling, bare hands, searching for the latch. David joins him once he breaks out of his paralzed disbelief. Together, they remove handfuls of clumped dirt until the entire surface area of the four-by-two foot steel box is exposed.

Bill finds the latch that’s secured shut by a padlock. He nudges David’s hands out of the way as he pulls his gun out of his holster, and positions the steel handle over the padlock. With three hard blows, the padlock breaks open, and he tosses it aside. 

Their shivering breaths sync in the utter silence of the cabin. Bill glances over at David who is staring at the lid of the box with wide, unblinking eyes. 

“Open it.” Bill whispers. 

David’s hands hesitate over the box for a few moments before he flips the latch open, and works his fingers underneath to raise the lid. The hinges groan in protest. David pushes harder on the lid, sending it tumbling open and letting scant, ivory moonlight reach across the bundled bills and blocks of gold. 

David’s whispered voice shatters their astounded silence. “My God …”

Bill meets his gaze, a smile quivering on his mouth. In a moment, yesterday’s tragedy sinks toward the back of his mind as the future splits open before him, every possibility he had dreamed of unlocked by enough money to carry them together into a new life. 

“Shit, David. This is it.” He says, his voice shaking yet bubbling with excitement. 

David begins to nod, his eyes pinching with ecstatic tears. 

“This is it!” Bill repeats, grabbing one of the gold blocks and holding it up between them. “We’re gonna have it all, David.”

David begins to laugh, a choked, hoarse little noise of disbelief. He leans closer as Bill drops the block back into the box and grabs him by the cheeks. 

“I love you …” David whispers, breathlessly just before Bill’s mouth smothers him. 

Bill kisses him hard, delving his fingers into the thick hair at David’s nape and reeling him in to his chest. Their lips break apart momentarily, and he whispers fervently in return, “I love you.”

David clutches at his chest, nudging his mouth back into Bill’s embrace. They can hardly kiss as they both laugh and tremble and struggle to breathe properly. It’s more of a fragmented mash of lips, hands clinging on, a fervent embrace that’s lost inside euphoria - a euphoria that’s all at once brutally shattered by a startled voice at their backs. 

“What the hell?” 

Bill tears his mouth from David’s abruptly as horror slams him in the breastbone. He tumbles to his backside against the dirt, and swings his gaze toward the doorway of the cabin to see Tucker standing over them with appalled shock blanching his face. 

The alarmed silence lasts barely seconds, but it may well have been a small eternity to the dread crashing through Bill from head to toe. His heart revolts against the cage of his ribs, and his belly rises up against his cramping lungs. The joy and possibility that had flushed his veins only moments ago withers, and he knows - he knows this night is about to go terribly awry. 

“What the hell is going on here?” Tuck demands, his trembling hands rising in disbelief. 

“Tuck, calm down-” Bill begins, stumbling to his feet. 

“Calm down?  _ Calm down _ ?” Tuck echoes, his voice rising to a shrill shout. “You’re a fucking homosexual, Bill? Both of you are?” 

“Just stop for a second! We found the money-” Bill says, holding out both his hands in a placating gesture. 

“And I found you just in time.” Tuck says, jabbing an accusatory finger at him. “What was the plan, huh? Take the money, get rid of me, and ride off into the fucking sunset together?” 

“No, of course that wasn’t-” David begins. 

“ _ You. _ ” Tuck snaps, pulling out his gun and pointing it at David. “You shut the hell up. You did this, didn’t you?”

“Tuck, what the fuck? Put the gun down.” Bill orders, rushing to put himself between the wavering barrel of Tuck’s gun and David. 

“No! No, this ain’t right. He did this to you, didn’t he? He fucking showed up, and corrupted your mind. You’re not a homo, Bill. We’ve known each other for years. You’ve been my friend since Germany - remember Germany, Bill? We’re war heroes. We’re … we’re men! You’re not- … No, this isn’t right. This isn’t …”

Tuck’s disjointed rambling fades as he paces desperately across the dirt floor, maintaining his grip on his gun while he scrapes his fingers through his hair and curls them into fists. 

“Tuck, just take a deep breath.” Bill says, trying to use his calmest tone even while bombs are going off inside his own mind. “It’s okay. We found the money, and we have no intention of taking your share. Let’s just divide it up, and go our separate ways. We don’t have to-”

“Don’t have to what?” Tuck cries, whirling around to glare at him with shimmering eyes. “Don’t have to talk about how you’ve been lying to me for months! How have you betrayed me?”

“He hasn’t betrayed you.” David says, softly. “He didn’t tell you because he knew you would react like this.”

“Shut the fuck up. I wasn’t talking to you, Dave!” Tuck says, swinging the gun back toward David’s face. 

“Tuck, stop. Put the gun away!” Bill says. 

“No, Bill. He’s evil. He’s the fucking Devil, and he did this to you.” Tuck rants, pacing closer to them with the gun clutching in his white-knuckled fist. “He poisoned your mind, made you think you’re some fucking abomonition. I won’t let him have you. Now come on. Come with me-”

Tuck grabs Bill by the arm, and yanks him violently away from David. 

“Let me go!” Bill shouts, wrenching against Tuck’s powerful grasp. 

“Stop it, Tuck. He’s not going with you!” David cries, reaching for Bill’s other arm. 

“Back off! Back the fuck off!” Tuck screams. 

Bill sees his finger against the trigger, the wild rage and fervor in Tuck’s eyes. He’s seen it before - a decade ago in Germany, and not so long ago in the field when one round of gunfire or an unexpected hand on his shoulder jolts him back through the years onto the charred destruction of a battlefield. There’s no reaching him with words when he’s like this, only holding down his violently revolting limbs and traumatized mind until the brief insanity passes. 

Grabbing at Tuck’s wrist, Bill directs the gun towards the ceiling. 

“Give me the gun!” He orders. 

Tuck wrenches his wrist away, bringing the gun to bear on David once more. 

Throwing his shoulder into Tuck’s chest, Bill grabs at the gun with both hands. Tuck’s fingers are wrapped like steel around the butt of the gun. The wrestle for the weapon lasts mere seconds. One moment, Bill thinks that he’s loosened Tuck’s grip and the gun is about to slide from his fingers, that he’ll be disarmed and ready to cool off after this brief burst of disillusioned rage. The next, he feels the gun buck in both of their hands, feeling the burning heat of discharge through the metal barrel, hears the splitting crack of igniting gunpowder. 

Tuck stops fighting, and takes a staggered step backwards. 

Bill is holding the gun limply in his hands, his head swimming and his chest pounding. 

David crumples slowly toward the ground. 

“Fuck, no …”

Bill doesn’t feel the gun slip from his fingers, nor does he remember the few strides it takes him to reach David. The seconds pass in quicksilver flashes of horror, of David’s pale, stricken expression of pain and shock, of the blood seeping past his shuddering fingers clutched to his chest. 

“David, no …” Bill chokes out, pulling David’s stiff, shivering body into the cradle of his arms. “David, look at me. Look at me, baby. It’s gonna be okay.”

“B-bill …” David rasps, his lips falling open to expel a thin stream of blood from the corner of his lips. 

Bill nudges David’s hand away from his chest, exposing the gushing blood and his chest torn open by the slug which had slammed into him from a distance of no more than three feet. His ribs are shuddering with helpless breaths, a wet, gurgling noise etching from his throat while his lungs fill with blood. Wide, dark eyes race up to implore Bill in silent agony, filling with unshed tears. 

“It’s okay, don’t talk.” Bill whispers, his voice dwindling to a tearful whimper as he presses his hand over the gushing wound. “Don’t talk, baby. It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be fine.”

David draws in short, painful breaths that end in agonized grimaces. He tries to lift a weak hand toward Bill’s face, but it collapses back to the dirt floor of the cabin as the blood pours between Bill’s fingers. His wide, darting eyes lose focus on Bill’s face, and his lips go slack. Bill can all but see the color drain from his face. 

The agony is brief. David’s panicked breathing is smothered with blood until he’s making no more than small, hiccuped gasps. He fades in Bill’s arms, limbs going limp and heavy. His eyes are barely open as he soundlessly moves his lips:  _ I love you.  _

“I love you, too.” Bill whispers, a sob choking the back of his throat. He hunches over David’s motionless body, and buries his face in his hair. “Please, David … please, don’t go. I can’t live without you. Please …”

No answer returns. Bill knows he’s gone even as the desperate cry leaves his lips. 

Tears are dried in thick, burning lines down his cheeks when he slowly lifts his face from David’s hair. A dull, numb sensation takes over his limbs. He can’t feel himself wading through these seconds even as he’s acutely aware of them - aware of the money they’d tried so hard to find a mere two feet away, now rendered worthless. Aware of David’s body heavy and sodden with his blood in his arms. Aware of Tucker standing behind him, watching David die in Bill’s arms with a horrified hand clutched to his mouth. 

“Bill …” He whispers, holding out a tremulous hand as Bill’s brow hardens with a scowl. “It was an accident-”

“Look what you did to him!” Bill’s enraged, broken cry shatters the pall hanging over the cabin. “Goddmanit, Tuck, you killed him!”

Tuck takes a staggered step back, his gaze flickering toward his gun lying on the floor with a flash of panic. 

Bill leaps to his feet, ripping his Colt from the holster, and blocking Tuck’s path toward his weapon. 

Tuck runs from the cabin. 

Bill bolts after him, leaving David and the money behind. In the pale moonlight, he can see Tuck a few yards ahead of him, fleeing for his life into the woods. A deep, untapped well of rage surges through him, fueling his unfeeling limbs in their pursuit. He follows Tuck into the forest where the dense foliage blocks out the light, and there’s barely any illumination to lead them past the trees, over stumps and fallen branches. 

Tuck stumbles on a rock, and nearly falls. He manages to scramble to his feet as Bill closes in on him, casting a panicked glance over his shoulder before he takes off again. 

“Tuck, stop!” Bill shouts, pushing himself harder to close the distance between them. “Stop running!”

Tuck runs a few more yards before staggering into a weary jog, and at least, coming to a standstill. 

“Get on your knees!” Bill orders, bracing the gun with both hands at the back of Tuck’s head. 

“What are you going to do, Bill? Kill me?”

“Get on your fucking knees!”

Tuck glances over his shoulder, exposing the fear in his eyes. He sinks down to his knees, and puts both hands above his head. 

Bill circles around in front of him, keeping the barrel level with his forehead. 

“You gonna shoot me, Bill?” Tuck asks, his voice wavering only slightly. “You gonna put me in the ground, and take all the money for yourself?” 

“I have no reason for that money now, Tuck. Don’t you fucking get that? David is dead.”

“I never trusted him,” Tuck whispers, imploringly holding Bill’s stare. “Now I know why. He corrupted you, Bill. He did this to you. And now he’s gone-”

“You shut the fuck up.” Bill growls, pressing the gun to Tuck’s forehead. 

Tuck presses his eyes shut, exhaling a shaking breath. “Bill, please. Don’t do this.”

“I loved him. And you killed him.”

“No, Bill.  _ You  _ did. You made me pull the trigger. I was just trying to get you out there-”

“I didn’t make you do anything. You pulled a gun on him, Tuck. What the fuck did you think was gonna happen?”

“I thought you’d come to your senses, and leave with me - your friend. Your friend for twenty-five years. That’s how I know this isn’t you. I know you, Bill. I know-”

“You don’t know shit.” Bill whispers, his voice catching as tears rise in his throat. He swipes at the corner of his eye with his left hand as he keeps the gun braced to Tuck’s forehead with the right. “You don’t know what we had. You don’t know if I’m going to put a bullet in your fucking head for what you did to him.”

Tuck swallows hard. His eyelids flutter against moisture before they rise again with steely determination. “No, you won’t.”

Bill draws in a deep breath, and presses the gun harder to Tuck’s head. His finger caresses the trigger. 

It would be easier, he thinks. Shoot Tuck. Make up a story about Tuck going mad. Anyone would believe it. No one would be left to tell the truth, no one to refute his version of these tragically unraveling events. 

He closes his eyes, and tries to curl his finger around the trigger. 

“Do it.” Tuck whispers. “If you think you have to, then do it. Just know it’s going to haunt you for the rest of your life. You won’t be able to live with it. You won’t be able to live with me whispering in your ear telling you that you made some of the worst mistakes of your life tonight.”

“Shut up.” Bill whispers. 

“We can go right now. Take the money, split in half. We can leave, and never come back-”

“You think I still care about the money?” Bill demands, opening his eyes to glare down at Tuck. “I know it’s all you ever cared about, you selfish son of a bitch. But it wasn’t for me. And I’m not going to let you get your share and walk away scott free - not after what you did to David.”

“Then kill me.”

“No.” Bill says, pulling the gun away from Tuck’s forehead. “No, Tuck. I want you to run.”

Tuck blinks up at him, his mouth moving in wordless shock. 

“Run away.” Bill whispers, Don’t look back. Don’t stop. Don’t ever  _ think  _ about coming back. I’m going to tell the Bureau and the world what happened here tonight - that you’re a greedy fucking bastard who wanted to take the money all for yourself, that you killed David to have it, that you would have killed me to if you had to; but I let you go. You’re my best friend, Tuck, and I let you go.” 

“You can’t-”

“I can.” Bill hisses, jabbing the gun against Tuck’s head again. “I can, and I will or else you aren’t walking out of this forest alive.”

They stare silently at each other for a long moment. 

“I loved you like a brother.” Tuck says, softly. 

Bill retrieves his gun, and takes a step back. He nods toward the dense, dark forest, a vast wilderness that could swallow all of their secrets. 

“Run.” He says. 

Tucker climbs to his feet. And runs.


	23. spun lies and the tragedy of life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of Tuck's account of Wopsononock Mountain, Holden and Nancy grapple with the truth while Bill faces increasing danger.

Outside the kitchen window, a bird calls against the silence. 

Tuck gazes quietly at the blue sky, unadulterated by clouds, while his finger pensively strokes the mag of his revolver. 

Nancy stopped crying and plunged into appalled silence minutes ago when Tuck explained how he walked back into the cabin to find David and Bill locked in a passionate kiss. 

Bill can’t bring himself to look up from his lap or offer a protest or lie even as he feels the weight of her searching gaze from across the table. He would be relieved that the truth is finally out if it weren’t for the horrendous circumstances, the knowledge that his secret is on the verge of destroying him. 

“So I ran,” Tuck says, after a long moment. “I tried to run back to the police department, but you had the car, Bill. You beat me back, of course, and immediately started spinning your lies about how we all went back to search for the money with the intent of turning it over to the BOI if we found it, and I was the only one planning on taking it for myself.” 

“You killed him.” Bill says, softly, lifting his head to meet Tuck’s angrily shimmering stare. “That was never a lie.” 

“You turned me into a monster.”

“The press did. I never meant for it to go beyond my statement to the BOI.” 

“Well, whatever you  _ meant _ doesn’t matter. Unlike your little fairytale, I walked away with nothing.  _ Nothing,  _ Bill.” 

Before he can continue, the rumble of approaching vehicles in the driveway pulls Tucker’s attention toward the front of the house. Nudging Brian off his knee, he rises to his feet, and holds the gun loosely over the boy’s shoulder. 

“Stay here.” He says, casting Bill a stern glare. 

Bill turns around in his chair to peer into the living room as Tucker opens the front door. 

“What’s going on?” Tuck’s voice is muted yet strained with concern. 

“Change of plans. Gunn’s bolted. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I don’t think he’s on our side anymore.”

“What do you mean? Not on our side?”

“We’re gonna have to do this without him. Not a bad thing either - that bastard would have taken eighty percent for himself, or better yet gotten rid of us to take it all.”

Bill’s stomach chills as he recognizes the voice of Jerry Brudos. He turns back around to see both Holden and Nancy pinning him with querying stares. 

“What are they talking about?” Holden whispers. 

“Eighty percent of what?” Nancy presses. 

Bill swallows hard, searching for another fledgling lie in the back of his throat, but he can’t come up with anything before Tuck comes back into the kitchen with Brian’s hand in his own. Sheriff Brudos lumbers in behind him flanked on either side by his deputies. 

“Bill,” He says, putting his hands on his hips. “I’m gonna need you to stand up and come with me.”

Bill stands, and scowls at him. “What the hell is going on?”

Brudos nods at Deputy Rissell. As Rissell approaches, withdrawing his handcuffs from his belt, Brudos says, “I’m placing you under arrest.”

“Under arrest? For what?” Nancy cries, leaping to her feet. 

“The murder of Paul Bateson.” Brudos says, ignoring Nancy’s pleading stare as he smiles grimly at Bill. “We have a witness who says you threatened his life just weeks before he went missing.”

“Paul Bateson - that dead man?” Nancy demands. “We didn’t even know him!”

“I didn’t kill anyone.” Bill says. 

“Now look, Bill, you can either come with us peacefully, or make a big scene in front of your wife and the boy. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you resist arrest, I’m going to have to.” Brudos says, waving Deputy Watson forward to assist Rissell. 

“No,” Bill says, holding up his hands. “That isn’t necessary.” 

Bill turns his gaze to Holden as Rissell jostles him around, and roughly guides his hands behind his back. The handcuffs encircle his wrists, and cinch shut with a metallic click. 

“Call Wendy.” He tells Holden. 

“What do I tell her?” Holden asks, his eyes wide with worry. 

“That I’ve been falsely accused, and that she should call up Combs. She’ll know what to do.” 

“Okay,” Holden says, nodding shakily. His hand hesitantly rises, considering touching Bill before it clamps into a fist at his side again. 

“Come on,” Rissell says, impatiently, tugging Bill toward the door by the handcuff chain. “Let’s go.”

“Don’t worry.” Bill reassures both Nancy and Holden. “I’ll be fine.”

“Now, Tench.” Rissell orders, shoving Bill’s shoulder. 

“All right, I’m going.” 

Rissell urges Bill toward the door, but Brudos puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“I’ll take him.” He says, grabbing Bill by the elbow. “You and Watson stay here. Mrs. Tench’s husband just became a murder suspect, and I think she’s in need of some witness protection.” 

“Yes, sir.” Rissell says, a coarse smile tilting his mouth. 

“If you lay one finger on her-” Bill says, wrenching against Brudos’ grip to cast Rissell a baleful glare. 

“You’re gonna what?” Rissell smirks. 

“Come on, Bill.” Brudos says, “You don’t trust a lawman to do his job? They’re just here for Nancy’s protection.”

“Fuck you, Jerry.” 

Bill catches Nancy’s worried stare just before Brudos manhandles him out of the kitchen. Once they get out onto the porch, Bill digs his heels in to put a halt toward their rapid pace toward the back of the police car. 

“Listen, Jerry.” Bill says, catching Brudos’ gaze. “You can do whatever you want to me, but if you hurt my wife or Father Ford-”

“Don’t worry. Rissell is like a Labrador retriever, Bill. He’s a good boy who does what I say, and I have no interest in harming Nancy or the priest. But I don’t trust either one of them to sit still while I haul your ass to jail.”

“This is wrong.” Bill mutters as Brudos urges him back into motion. “You can’t hold them prisoner in this house.”

“I’m the law in this town. I can do whatever I want.” 

As Brudos leads him to the backseat of the car and shoves his head down into the cramped space, Bill silently wishes, not for the first time, that he could change what happened on Wopsononock Mountain, but this wish is different. Watching Nancy and Holden’s figures on the front porch, guarded on either side by the deputies, grow smaller and smaller behind the rapidly departing police car, Bill wishes he had pulled the trigger and put Tuck in the ground right along with David. 

^^^

After the police car turns at the end of the street and disappears, Brian turns around to look up at Nancy and Holden. 

“Where’s Uncle Tuck taking Uncle Bill? Is he in trouble?”

Nancy’s lower lip trembles with barely controlled tears. 

Holden crouches down in front of Brian. “Yes, he is. You know what you can do to help?”

“What?” Brian whispers. 

“Go to your bedroom and say a prayer. Ask God to help Bill and keep him safe.” Holden says. He takes his rosary from around his neck, and presses it into the boy’s small hands. “Take this.”

Brian gazes down at the rosary with wide eyes. The cross that’s meant for the Apostle’s Creed is almost the same size as his fist. 

“Go on.” Holden says, rising to his feet.

Deputy Watson opens the screen door, and shoos Brian back into the house. He nods for Nancy and Holden to follow him. There’s no room for disagreement in his eyes. 

They gather in the living room where Rissell has already made himself at home in the recliner with his feet propped up on the ottoman. He lights a cigarette, and peruses their stiff posture in the entryway of the living room with a bemused smile on his mouth. 

“Everyone, relax.” He says, spreading his hands. “It’s like a fucking graveyard in here.”

“What do you expect, Monte? You just arrested my husband.” Nancy says, her voice steely despite the quiver of tears. 

“Hey, it’s ‘Deputy Rissell’.” He says, the humor on his face disappearing into cold disdain. “Have some fucking respect for my badge, lady.”

“You shouldn’t speak to a woman that way.” Holden says, putting a hand on Nancy’s arm. “Let her be.”

Rissell’s mouth sneers, but he scoffs an apathetic noise rather than pursuing the argument. 

Holden guides Nancy to the sofa where they sit side-by-side. He offers her his hand. She looks at it hesitantly for a moment before placing her palm in his. He squeezes her knuckles. 

Silence ensues except for the rustle of Rissell opening the newspaper and Watson moving around in the kitchen, making use of the teapot without permission. Holden can all but hear the clock on the wall ticking away the seconds, their ability to do anything to help Bill smothered by the deputies’ presence. 

At length, Nancy’s trembling voice breaks the silence, “I don’t understand any of this, Father. I feel as if I’ve been wandering through the darkest night for the last year, confused, lied to. What can you say to me? Trust in God? I’m not certain you’ve been entirely honest with me either.” 

Holden squints at the carpet under his feet, his stomach sinking. 

“You’re right. There’s a lot that’s been happening these past six months that you don’t know about.” 

She twists her hand out of his embrace, and wraps her arms around her waist. When he peeks up at her, a thin tear is traveling down her cheek.

Holden wonders if it has been too much raw truth for anyone to digest this morning. He’d expected her to devolve into hysterics upon finding out that her husband is a homosexual, but resolved resentment hardens her features, an almost aged acceptance. His guilt burns in his gut. 

“I can’t explain it all right now,” He says, lowering his voice as Rissell peers at them over the top of the newspaper. “Not with them watching, but there was a good cause-”

“It does not surprise me that Bill is putting himself and everyone else around him in danger for the sake of his job. That isn’t what I meant, Father.” Nancy interrupts, sharply. 

“What did you mean?”

“You know. I mean what Tucker said in there - his story about what really happened in Pennsylvania. Him and …. David.” 

Holden’s mouth moves wordlessly as he searches for an answer that doesn’t implicate him. 

She doesn’t wait for the next carefully spun lie. “He told you, didn’t he? He tells you everything. Everything he can’t tell me. Everything in his heart, his soul … His sins.”

Holden glances away, teeth pinching at his lower lip. “Nancy, there is one thing I do know, and it’s this - there hasn’t been a day since Bill came back from that mountain that he hasn’t suffered with the torment of his guilt. Not a day that he doesn’t regret everything that happened. Whether you want to believe it or not, he’s penitent for what he did; we can’t give up on him.”

“He was going to leave me, Father.”

“Yes.” 

“And what has he done to you?” Her voice is a low, hollow whisper. “If you’re so entrenched in the tragedy of his life, there must be something.”

The shrill ring of the telephone rescues Holden from cobbling together some watered-down version of the truth.

Nancy moves to answer it, but Rissel springs up from the recliner and blocks her path. 

“Uh-uh, I don’t think so, missy.” He says, waving a finger in her face. 

“I’m not allowed to answer the phone in witness protection?” She demands. 

“Nope.” 

“You can’t do that.” 

Watson leans in the doorway behind Rissell. “Nancy, sit back down. We’re just trying to watch out for you.”

“This isn’t right. You can’t keep me prisoner here. I want to see my husband.” 

“Sit back down!” Rissell shouts, jabbing a finger at the couch. 

“This is America, Monte. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?” 

“Oh, he’s guilty, all right.”

“Then prove it!” She cries, leaning closer to his face with her hands bunched into fists at her sides. 

Rissell glares at her, his nostrils flaring with incensed breaths. “If you don’t sit down-”

“And if you don’t let me see my husband right now, I am going to scream bloody murder until every single person within a country mile comes running.”

They share a brief, yet tense standoff. 

Holden is silently impressed that Nancy doesn’t waver. She holds her stance mere inches away from Rissell’s face, matching his stern glare with her chin held high.

“I’ll call Jerry.” Watson says, putting a hand on Rissell’s shoulder. “Let him know you’re coming.”

Rissell’s gaze snaps to his partner.

“Come on,” Watson says, shrugging. “What’s she gonna do? If it makes her happy, our job is ten times easier.”

Rissell consents with a dip of his chin. 

“I’m coming with you.” Holden says, rising from the couch. 

“Hey, Father, don’t push your luck.” Rissell shoulders past Nancy and puts his hand on the butt of his gun. “You’re staying here.”

“I’m not allowed to pray with one of my congregants?”

“You can pray his last rites when they string him up for murder.” Rissell says, planting a hand in the center of Holden’s chest and shoving him back down to the couch. “Until then, you stay put.” 

^^^

Papermill’s jail is not a jail at all, but a single holding cell at the back of the Sheriff’s station that has a cot bolted to each wall. No one else is occupying the cell when Brudos leads Bill past the bars, and instructs him to remove his shoes, empty his pockets, and hand over anything that might be used as a weapon or ligature. The collection includes his billfold, keys, lighter, cigarettes, wristwatch, neck tie, suspenders, and belt. 

“Can I have a cigarette before you take those?” Bill asks, nodding at the confiscated items in Brudos’ hands. 

“Sure.” Brudos says, casting him a smugly magnanimous smile. 

Bill leans forward to accept the cigarette that Brudos holds up to his mouth. The lighter strikes, flame catching at the end. 

“Thanks.” Bill mutters. 

“That’s all the charity you’re getting so you better enjoy it.” Brudos says, backing out of the cell and pushing the door shut behind him. 

Ignoring the jab, Bill sits down on the cot, and takes a hard drag of the cigarette. He watches Brudos convene in the Sheriff station’s bullpen with Tucker who is sitting at one of the deputies’ desks.” 

“What about Gunn?” Tuck asks.

“Forget him.” Brudos replies, “We don’t need him. He’s in the wind anyway. We went over to check out the house, and it looks like he left in a hurry.” 

“You think he’s in some kinda trouble?” 

“If he is, I have no intention of going down with him. We need to get this done before whatever shit he’s brought comes raining down on our heads.”

“Our heads?” Tuck rises to his feet, a scowl etched on his brow. “ As far as the BOI knows, I’m still in Texas or California. I’m not a part of whatever Gunn got himself wrapped up in - and it’s gonna stay that way, got it? I was never fucking here.”

“So, what? You’re just gonna show up for a few weeks, use me to get the money, then disappear again?”

“You got it right. It’s gonna be clean. I’m going to get what I want, and Bill is going to get what he fucking deserves. Now if you don’t want to help me with that, then get the fuck out of my way.”

Brudos holds up his hands as Tuck crowds closer to him, glaring up at him with the wiry tenacity of a Tasmanian devil despite being two sizes smaller than the lawman. 

“Got it.” Brudos says. 

Bill finishes off his cigarette, and leans over to smash it into the cement floor. Rising to his feet, he shuffles across the cell, and taps on the bars with his knuckles. 

The two men turn to look at him. 

“What?” Tuck snaps. 

Bill jabs his chin for Tuck to come closer. “C’mere.”

Tuck scowls, but waves a hand at Brudos to stay put while he swaggers over to the bars. 

“What?” He repeats, impatiently, as he comes up to the bars. 

“You’re smarter than this, Tuck.” Bill says, keeping his voice low as he shoots a glance over Tuck’s shoulder at Brudos. 

“Than what?”

“Teaming up with Jerry? You’ve known him as long as I have. He’s a lughead.” 

“And the law. He’s proved himself as an asset so far seeing as you’re the one sitting behind these bars and not me.”

“What’s the plan, huh, Tuck? Throw me in jail for a murder you know I didn’t commit, and then what? You killed David. You can’t reverse that. You can’t get your life back.”

“I don’t want my life back. Don’t you get that yet? I don’t give a fuck about what the BOI thinks I did or didn’t do. I’m here for the same thing that I was back in Pennsylvania. Once I have that, I’m taking my family and getting them out of this hellhole of a town.” 

Bill glances away, clenching his jaw. 

Tuck chuckles, softly. “That’s right. I know what you did, Bill. I just have to figure out where you hid it.”

Bill pushes away from the bars, and scrapes a hand through his hair. He sees no point in lying to Tuck. Despite being locked in a jail cell, he still holds the biggest bargaining chip between them. 

“All right, then. If that’s all you want-” He says, spreading his hands, “Forget Jerry and this trumped up murder charge. I can take you there right now. We can split it like you always wanted, and go our separate ways. Nobody has to get hurt.”

Tuck regards him coolly for a long moment before a low chuckle splits his lips.

“I mean it, Tuck-”

“Oh, I’m sure you do, but those days are over.” Tuck says, squeezing his fists around the bars and leaning closer. “You want fifty-fifty? After what you did to me? I don’t think so. I’m going to leave you the way you left me, Bill. Empty, alone, with  _ nothing _ . I’m not just going to take the money. I’m going to take your life. Pretty soon, it won’t just be Nancy that knows you’re a fucking Sodomite. It’s going to be the whole world. This entire town, the BOI,  _ everyone _ . I wouldn’t be surprised if they strung you up on Main Street. You and your little whore of a priest.”

Tuck whirls around to walk away, and Bill breaks out of his paralyzed horror. He slams his fists around the bars, jolting their entire structure with a deafening clatter of metal-on-metal. 

“Goddamnit, Tuck! It doesn’t have to be like this!” He shouts. 

Tuck ignores the plea. He says to Brudos, “He knows where it is. He can lead us right to it. You just have to use the right incentive.” 

The conversation is stalled by the telephone on Rissell’s desk ringing. 

Bill’s hands are frozen around the bars, his chest pounding as Brudos picks up the phone, and barks into it, “What?” A few beats of silence before he shakes his head and mutters, “Are you fucking kidding me? … Yeah, all right, but just for a few minutes then she goes right back to the house, got it? … Yep, okay. Bye.”

“What was that?” Tuck asks. 

“Nancy wants to see her husband.” Brudos says, shifting a mildly amused gaze to Bill. “That’s a stubborn woman you’ve got there, Bill. Sticking by your side even after Tuck here tells her what you really are.”

“She’s a good woman, Jerry. She shouldn’t even be involved in this.” Bill says. 

“Just be happy I’m letting her in here.” 

Bill sits back down on the cot and wishes for another cigarette or a splash of liquor on his tongue to ease the clutch of dread knotted up in his chest. The only ray of hope in his otherwise untenable position is that Wendy had been expecting his and Holden’s return to D.C. almost two hours ago; by now she’ll be suspicious of their whereabouts, and it won’t take long for her concern for Holden’s safety to translate into action. 

Ten minutes later, Nancy enters the sheriff’s station with Deputy Rissell holding her by the elbow. When she sees Bill behind the bars, she twists her arm free of his grasp and rushes across the bullpen to him. 

“Nancy, I’m so sorry.” Bill says, meeting her at the bars. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“No, I’m okay. What about you?”

“I’m fine. What about Holden?”

“He’s okay. He’s at the house. They wouldn’t let him come. Bill, they won’t let us answer the phone or make any calls. I can’t get a message to Wendy right now.”

Bill cuts a glare past her at Brudos and Rissell who are monitoring the conversation at a distance of no more than five feet. 

“This is illegal, Jerry.” He says, “You can’t imprison them in that house.”

“And I can’t have you pulling your little strings with the BOI to get yourself released.” Brudos replies, putting his hands on his hips. “It’s a murder charge, Bill. I’m going to make sure it sticks.”

“What should I do?” Nancy whispers, gazing up at him fearfully with tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. 

“Just make sure you and Brian are safe. And tell Holden ...” Bill says, lowering his voice. He slips his hand past the bars to cradle the back of her head and draw her closer. He presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth, and hides his next words in her cheek. 

When she pulls back, her eyes glisten with tears and confoundment. 

“Just tell him.” Bill presses. 

She nods, a small frown knitting her brow. 

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise.”

“All right, that’s enough.” Brudos says, waving his hand. “You can see that he isn’t being mistreated, Nancy. Are you happy now?”

“Yes.” Nancy says, taking an unsteady step back from the bars. 

“Good. Then it’s time to go back to the house.” 

“What happens now?” She asks, “Doesn’t he get a lawyer?”

“Sure. Once we get him transported to the jail in Arlington, and we know his friends at the Bureau can’t squash our case.”

“When does that happen?”

“Tomorrow, God willing.”

“I’d like to go with you.”

“Of course. But tonight you have to stay at the house.” Brudos says, his tone holding a condescending note as he guides Nancy back toward the front door. 

She casts a worried glance over her shoulder at Bill, and he offers what he hopes is a reassuring gaze. 

Once she and Rissell are gone again, the door shut on their heels, Bill braces his hands around the bars and shifts his stare to Brudos. 

“I’m not going to Arlington, am I?”

Brudos shrugs. He motions for Tucker to follow him toward the cell, his fingers plying the key from amongst the others on the ring. 

“That’s up to you.” He says. 

“Me?”

“Yes. You and how cooperative you choose to be.” 

Bill takes a step back from the bars. 

Brudos unlocks the cell, and Tuck strides in ahead of him, hands flexing into fists at his sides. The door slams shut behind them. 

^^^

  
  


The phone rings three more times while Nancy and Rissell are at the sheriff’s station. Watson stands guard in the living room archway, his lanky arms crossed over his chest. He watches Holden with barely concealed intrigue that's uninterrupted by the piercing ring of the telephone shattering the utter silence. 

“Is there something you want to ask me?” Holden asks, finally, rising from the couch and pacing anxiously in front of the window. 

Watson shifts his shoulder against the doorjamb, and glances away bashfully. “I just never took you for a … a-”

“Homosexual?” Holden finishes for him, tasting the word bitterly from the back of his throat. 

“You or Agent Tench. I don’t know if people will believe it.” 

“Doesn’t Gunn have proof?” 

“McNeil claims he does …” 

Holden studies him intently, and Watson rubs a hand over his flushing cheek, aware he’s said too much. 

“Some men in your position would take this opportunity to take out their disgust on me.” Holden remarks, wandering away from the window toward Watson. “I suspect once this becomes public knowledge I’ll have to leave town forever. The men who live here speak with their fists and their anger.”

“I can’t beat a priest, Father.”

“You beat an innocent black man.”

“Yeah,” Watson scoffs, “But you’re a priest, a man of the cloth-”

“Yes, imagine how I feel.”

Watson squints. Holden can tell he is trying to imagine it, perhaps too vividly. 

“You’re curious aren’t you?” Holden murmurs, “Tell me, child; what sins are you guilty of? Even those of the imagination?”

Watson swallows hard. The blush on his face and neck darkens, and he digs deep for his masculine anger that’s sewn into his façade. 

“Just back off, you fucking pansy.” He snaps, straightening from the doorframe to tower over Holden. 

Holden shuffles back, and demurely lowers his chin. 

Meanwhile, the telephone keeps ringing. 

Ten minutes later, Rissell’s car rolls down the driveway. He leads Nancy inside by the elbow, and motions for her to join Holden on the couch while he talks in muttered tones with Watson in the hall. 

“How is he?” Holden whispers. 

“He hasn’t been beaten, if that’s what you mean.” Nancy replies, “But this arrest is a sham. They claim they’re transporting him to Arlington for booking until arraignment, but I don’t know if they mean to actually let him go. We have to find a way to get him out of there.”

“I might have a way.” Holden says, casting a glance at Watson. 

“How?”

“Don’t worry about it right now. You just need to keep Rissell distracted.”

“You’re going to try to run?” 

“I have to. We can’t just sit here and let this happen.” 

“You're right,” Nancy agrees. “Oh, there was something else that Bill wanted me to tell you.”

“What?”

“He said he told you about the possum. He wants you to dig it up.”

Holden frowns. 

“Do you know what it means?” Nancy presses. 

Holden shakes his head. “Did he say anything else?”

“That was it.” 

They fall into silence. Nancy leans back against the cushions, and presses a nervous hand to her cheek. 

Holden closes his eyes against the threat of tears. He can see the apple tree against the clean blue slate of the sky, he and Bill’s last conversation beneath the ripe, red bunches of fruit. He wonders now what would have happened if he had gone away with Bill as he’d suggested; would he have run into the arms of a man he doesn’t even truly know - the same mistake he made with Ed all those years ago? 

Tuck’s story about Wopsononock Mountain shakes his already trembling faith in their future together. He can't stop imagining Bill shooting the last of Speck’s gang in cold blood, and he can’t ignore the six-month long plot to get to the bank robber’s stolen fortune. 

From his very first confession, Bill had admitted to greed and selfishness, but Holden had never suspected the extent of those sins. He’d never imagined the carefully crafted lies that omitted his part in the disappearance of Speck’s money. 

Holden opens his eyes. 

_ Speck’s money.  _

_ The apple tree.  _

_ The dead possum.  _

Just as the revelation eclipses all else, the crunch of gravel beneath tires draws his attention to the window. Past the floral drapes, he glimpses a tan coupe approaching the house. 

“Wendy.” He says, grabbing onto Nancy’s wrist. 

Rissell marches into the living room, and edges along the curtains. His face blanches with panic when he glimpses Wendy stepping out of the car and shading her eyes against the dying sunlight. 

“Shit.” He says, unholstering his pistol. 

“What are you going to do?” Nancy asks. 

“Nothing.  _ You’re  _ going to get rid of her.” 

Rissell hauls Nancy from the couch by the elbow, and drags her toward the front door. 

“What do I tell her?” Nancy cries. 

“I don’t care. Just get rid of her.”

“Come with me, Father.” Watson says, refraining from the kind of physical force Rissell had applied. He instead puts his hand purposefully on his gun. 

Holden goes with him into the kitchen where Watson shoves him up against the wall, and presses the gun gently below his chin. 

“Don’t move, or make a sound.” Watson whispers. 

They’re so close now that Holden can make out the flecks of white in Watson’s gray-blue eyes and distinguish each individual eyelash. Hot breath surges against his cheeks as Wendy’s knock on the front door echoes through the house. 

Holden lifts his chin and closes his eyes. The gun presses harder beneath his jaw. 

“Wendy, what are you doing here?” Nancy’s question rings with false ignorance. 

“I’m looking for Bill. He told me he would be in D.C. three hours ago.” 

“Well, he should have gotten there by now.” 

“You mean he left already?”

“Yes. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on. He left without a word.” Nancy says, her voice quivering slightly around the lie.

“Nancy, are you okay?” 

Silence stifles the house. Holden shifts against the wall as Watson’s weight leans into him. He creeps his eyelids open to glimpse the deputy’s face mere inches away, his brow puckered. Opening his mouth hesitantly, he tries to draw in a shuddering breath and swallow against the gun jammed into his esophagus. 

Watson presses a big, rough hand over his mouth, harder than necessary. 

“Not. A. Sound.” Watson hisses, pushing Holden’s head back against the wall. 

Holden sucks in a breath through his nose, and offers a limp nod. 

“Oh, I’m okay. It’s just Brian. He’s been sick all morning.” Nancy is saying from the front of the house. “I’m just so scattered. I’m sorry. Do you think Bill is okay?” 

“I’m not sure.” 

“Well, have you been to the church?”

There’s another beat of silence. Holden presses his eyes shut as nausea burns his stomach. The deputies must know that if Wendy goes to the church they’ll find the dead thug on the floor. 

“I haven’t.” Wendy says. 

“I don’t know where else he would have gone.” Nancy says, “I can’t leave Brian alone. Can you call me when you find him?”

“Of course.” 

“Thank you, Wendy.” 

“You're welcome.” 

The front door eases shut, but no one moves until they hear Wendy’s car roll out of the driveway. The silence shatters with the loud, fleshly smack of Rissell’s hand striking Nancy’s cheek. 

Holden lurches against Watson’s grip on him as Nancy’s body thuds to the floor and she releases a cry of pain. 

“Why the fuck did you mention the church, you stupid bitch?” Rissell shouts. 

“I’m sorry.” Nancy sobs. 

Holden wrenches himself free of Watson’s grip, and rushes out of the kitchen. Sinking to the floor beside Nancy, he wraps an arm around her shoulders. Shivering with tears, she curls against his chest. 

“Leave her alone!” Holden shouts, holding up a defensive hand as Rissell looms over them, his fist poised threateningly above his shoulder. “There’s nothing she could have said to make Wendy not suspicious. She’s a BOI agent. It’s her job to be suspicious.” 

“He’s not wrong.” Watson mutters. 

“Shut up. Let me think.” Rissell says, pacing away with his hands tangled in his hair. 

“I don’t think we should stay here.”

“We don’t do anything unless Sheriff Brudos says so. And he told us to stay here so that’s what we’re gonna do.” 

Rissell paces another moment longer before pausing to draw in a deep breath. 

“All right, get up.” He says, tilting his chin at Nancy. “I’m calling the sheriff with an update and then you’re gonna make me something to eat. I’m starved.”

Nancy crawls to her feet, carefully wiping tears from her cheek. Rissell nudges her toward the kitchen with his gun. 

Rising to his feet, Holden regards the nervous pinch of Watson’s teeth against his lower lip. 

“Sheriff Brudos should have put you in charge.” He says, softly. “You’re obviously much smarter than that brute.”

Watson shifts him a defensive glare. “Monte has been a deputy for three years longer than me.”

“So? Do you really think we should stay here?” Holden asks, leaning closer. “Now that a BOI agent is suspicious?”

Watson draws in a slow breath, his nostrils flared. “What are you suggesting?”

“Nothing I know you’re not already thinking. We can get out of here.”

Both of their startled gazes swing to the kitchen when a loud clatter interrupts their taut conversation. Nancy has accidentally spilled a glass of water down the front of Rissell’s shirt. 

“Jesus Christ!” Rissell shouts, leaping to his feet. “Can’t you do anything right?”

“I’m sorry.” Nancy says, backing away, “Let me help you clean up - or at least find you a dry shirt.”

Rissell grumbles, holding his damp shirt away from his skin. He follows Nancy down the hallway toward the bedroom, passing Watson and Holden without a glance. Once they’re out of earshot, Holden walks toward the backdoor. 

“What are you doing?” Watson demands, following closer behind. 

“I just told you.” Holden says, turning to press himself against the door. “I know you don’t want to stay here. You want to leave - with me.”

Watson stares at him, his jaw working from side to side as a deep pink flush crawls up his cheeks. 

“No, I …” He chokes out. 

“Come with me.” Holden murmurs, turning the door handle. 

Watson’s mouth opens and closes in a fading argument as Holden eases the door open, and slips out onto the back porch. He follows slowly, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder. 

“Hurry.” Holden says, waving Watson closer. 

The door swings shut behind them. As the latch clicks, Holden sees the resolve harden in Watson’s eyes. 

Grabbing Holden by the elbow, he leads him roughly down the steps and into the yard; but instead of making a turn for the front of the house and the car, he guides them in the direction of the barn. 

“Where are we going?” Holden asks, resisting against Watson’s iron grip on his arm. 

“Shut up. Let’s go.” Watson says, jerking on Holden’s arm. 

Holden stumbles after him. He casts a quick glance over his shoulder at the house, but he can’t second guess his decision. One of them has to leave. One of them gets left behind. He can’t consider the danger Nancy is in right now. If he doesn’t escape, Bill might not make it out of the Papermill jail alive.

He offers just enough resistance to make it plain he’s gotten himself in over his head with his salacious suggestions, but allows Watson to drag him to the barn. They enter through the side door where the tractor is parked with its hood resting open. A work bench to the left is littered with tools. 

Holden doesn’t protest except for a mere whimper from his throat when Watson pushes him up against the coarse wall of the barn, and feels Holden up with unwieldy determination. His breath is hot and rancid against Holden’s cheek as he presses closer, making his shameful desire apparent in the lump jammed to Holden’s belly. 

Holden turns his face away from the threat of a brusque kiss, and Watson grabs at his jaw. He pushes Holden’s head back against the splintered board of the barn wall, muttering a low animal grunt of desire. 

“I’m not a faggot.” He breathes hard against Holden’s ear. “You understand that, Father?”

Holden nods his head. 

“I just … my wife doesn’t - she won’t do it. I just want you to suck my cock.”

Holden nods against Watson’s grip on his jaw. 

“You understand?” Watson shakes him. 

“Yes. Yes. I understand. You don’t have to force me.”

Watson’s bruising grasp slackens. He eases back, and rubs a hand over his face. 

“Okay, all right.” He says, hands shaking with nervous energy. He nods at the floor littered with hay. “Get down on your knees.”

Holden leans tentatively away from the wall. He reaches out to touch Watson’s chest, a gentle approach. 

Watson flinches, but doesn’t resist Holden guiding them in a slow semicircle and pressing his back to the wall. 

“Unzip.” Holden whispers, glancing down at the prominent lump in Watson’s trousers. 

Watson flushes crimson. He reaches down to unbuckle his belt. “Don’t speak, Father. I don’t want to hear your voice anymore. I'll tell you how this goes.”

Holden nods his head. 

Watson unzips his pants. His cock peeks past layers of white underpants. 

Holden shifts a gaze toward the work bench. The wrench is within reach. Kneeling down, he inches closer to Watson. He puts a hand on the deputy’s thigh, and peeks up at him. 

“I think you should close your eyes.” He says. 

Watson frowns down at him, but nods. He presses his eyes shut. 

Holden leans in, let’s Watson feel the heat of his breath - only that. Grabbing onto the handle of the steel wrench, he swings as he comes to his feet. 

Watson doesn’t see it coming. The wrench slams across his jaw and mouth. Holden hears the sickening crunch of bone, sees the explosive spray of blood from his slackened mouth. He drops hard, and Holden hits him again. 

He doesn’t wait to see if Watson moves, or if the metal head of the wrench has done far more than deprive the deputy of consciousness. Dropping the tool to the ground, he hastily scans the barn with his pulse thundering in his chest and his spine chilling with panic and adrenaline. 

The shovel is hanging on the rack on the other wall alongside a rake and a pitchfork. He grabs it on his way out. 

Then he doesn’t look back. He runs into the cornfield in the direction of the apple tree and a rabid possum buried westward at its feet. 


	24. the ones who can destroy us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Six months worth of consequences come to a head beneath the apple tree.

_ I’ve been through worse.  _

It’s the first, fuzzy thought that crosses Bill’s half-conscious brain when his puffy eyelids slide open to the grating ring of the telephone on Brudos’ desk. The coppery tang of blood in his mouth and the awful rift of pain in his ribs when he tries to inhale registers just after the mantra. 

He’s lying in the fetal position on the floor of the cell where they left him half an hour ago. The vicious beating came to an end only when he began to lose consciousness, and he could neither resist nor capitulate to their demands. 

“How long have you known me, Tuck?” He’d mumbled, slipping toward the floor.

He hadn’t needed to answer that question. Tuck had walked out of the cell, snapping at Brudos to come with him. 

By now, he must know that using his fists isn’t going to dislodge the truth from Bill’s mouth. Maybe he knew it before, but he’d enjoyed taking out his bitterness and rage while Bill was unable to defend himself all the same. 

Harrowing pain courses through Bill’s body when he tries to move so he lays still instead, forcing his eyes to focus past the bars to where Brudos is grabbing the phone. Tuck is slouched in one of the deputy’s chairs, spinning the mag of his revolver and whipping it shut over and over again with resentful focus. 

“Hello?” Brudos barks into the receiver. 

Bill frowns as his addled brain processes the shift in the sheriff’s demeanor, from restless to panicked. 

“He what?” Brudos demands, his face going red. “I gave you two one job. One fucking job, Monte!”

Tuck puts his gun away, and stands upright. “What the hell is going on?”

Brudos ignores the question, and paces away. “Well, shit, we gotta go after him. He attacked a member of law enforcement. I’ll call everybody else in. In the meantime, I want you to get the woman and the kid over here. We’re going to speed things along.”

Hanging up the phone, Brudos mutters to Tuck, “The priest got away.”

“What? How?”

“He attacked Deputy Watson. Rissell isn’t sure he’s gonna make it.” 

“Shit. That little fucker has more fight in him than I thought.”

“I’m calling in the rest of my deputies to track him down.” 

“You better do more than that.” Tuck says, “We’ve got everything on the line here, Jerry.”

“You don’t need to lecture me. I’m done playing these games. You said we just need to use the right leverage to get him to talk? Well, we’ve got all the leverage we need holed up in that house.” 

Ignoring the pain throbbing through his every limb, Bill crawls over to the bars, and pulls himself to his feet. 

“What the fuck are you going to do?” He demands, shaking the bars. “Huh, Jerry? I told you that you could do whatever you want to me. If you hurt my wife or Brian I will kill you. You understand? I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Hey, shut the hell up!” Brudos shouts, marching over to the cell, “You’re going to do everything I tell you, got it? If you don’t, none of you are walking out here.”

“What are you saying? You’re gonna kill my wife, my child? Have you lost your mind?”

“Everybody calm the fuck down!” Tuck interrupts, “Jerry, leave him alone. He’ll do the right thing on his own. Won’t you, Bill?”

Bill shifts his glare to Tuck, but he doesn’t have a rebuttal prepared. 

Tuck casts him a self-assured smile. 

Leaning back from the bars, Bill releases a weary sigh. The thick knot of dread in his chest tightens, a millstone dragging him toward the bottom of a murky lake. He always knew that he’d made some of the worst mistakes of his life in Pennsylvania, but he’d never imagined it ending this way. As much as he wants to believe Jerry doesn’t have the stones to do what he’s claiming, he can’t trust anything any longer - least of all his own judgment. 

While they await Rissell’s arrival, Brudos picks up the phone and calls the rest of his deputies. He tells them all the same thing: Father Ford is responsible for a brutal attack on Deputy Watson, and he is to be brought in by any means necessary. His last call is to Judge Daniels to ascertain how long it might take to secure a warrant for the priest’s arrest. 

Bill can only hope that Holden had gotten as far away from Papermill as quickly as possible. 

A short time later, Rissell leads Nancy and Brian into the Sheriff’s station. His darting eyes are glazed with apprehension. 

“What the hell is the plan, Sheriff?” He asks, his voice low yet carrying in a coarse, raspy tone across the bullpen. “If Ford gets the BOI over here-”

Brudos ignores his deputy’s concern. He grabs a fistful of Nancy’s hair, and drags her behind his long strides toward the jail cell. 

Bill lunges against the bars as Nancy cries out, clawing helplessly at Brudos’ meaty hand wrapped up in her curls. 

“Stop it!” He shouts, thrusting an arm past the bars in a vain attempt to assuage the sheriff’s rough grip. 

Brudos shoves Nancy up against the cell, and keeps his fist around her hair so that her flushed, damp cheeks are pressed to the bars. 

“I’m done with you jerking us around, you understand?” He says, unholstering his pistol. 

Nancy’s wide, terrified eyes meet Bill’s. He can tell that she was crying long before they arrived here, perhaps because of the puffy bruise rising on her cheek. 

“Let her go, damnit!” Bill says, casting Brudos a pleading stare. “You’re hurting her!”

Brudos lifts his gun, and presses it to Nancy’s temple. “Tell me where the money is right now, or Nancy here gets a bullet in her skull.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Bill shouts, his pulse exploding with horror. “Put the gun down!”

“Not until you tell me where the money is.”

“Fine! I’ll tell you. I’ll lead you right to it. Just put the gun down, and let her go!”

Brudos tucks his gun back in his holster with a grim smile, and releases Nancy’s hair. 

“There, that wasn’t so hard, now was it?” 

Bill ignores his smug question as he sinks down to his knees where Nancy is crumpled by the bars. 

“Nancy, honey, look at me.” 

She blinks, sending tears spilling down her cheeks as she looks up at him. 

“I’m sorry. It’s gonna be okay.” He whispers, reaching past the bars to gingerly touch her cheek. 

She pulls away, smearing tears and mascara with her sleeve. 

“It will be.” She whispers, climbing unsteadily to her feet. “Once you give them what they want.”

Bill nods, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat. 

“Okay.” He says, looking at both Brudos and Tuck, “Let’s go. It isn’t far.”

“See. Didn’t I tell you?” Tuck says, patting Brudos on the shoulder. He nods for Rissell to join them. “Get him out of there. We’re wasting daylight.”

While Brudos and Rissell lead Bill out of the cell, Tuck kneels down in front of Brian, whispering something in a reassuring tone. The boy’s expression is placid as if unaffected by day’s events, but Bill can glimpse the glassy sheen of fear in his eyes. In just a short time, he’s grown adept at hiding his fear, and Bill wishes he could muster an iota of that reserve. 

The group is somber and silent as Brudos and Rissell lead Bill out of the sheriff’s station, and Tuck follows close behind with Nancy and Brian. Bill blinks against the bright, late afternoon sunshine glaring over the tops of deserted shops closed up for the Lord's day and half-naked trees speckled with oranges and yellows. The street is nearly vacant, no witnesses to the slow parade toward the truck parked at the curb. 

Brudos drives while Bill is crammed in the middle, and Rissel is in the passenger's seat with his gun pressed to Bill’s ribs. Tuck, Nancy, and Brian are crowded in the backseat. 

“All right, Bill. Point us in the right direction.” Brudos says, twisting the keys in the ignition. 

“Orchard Road.” Bill says, “West of Gordon Wright’s corn crop.”

“You’re shitting me.” 

“No.” 

“You buried it in your own backyard?” Brudos says as he pulls away from the curb. “I don’t know whether that’s brazen or just plain stupid.”

“With Bill, you always get a little of both.” Tuck says, grunting a chuckle. 

Bill doesn’t answer either of them. He stares straight ahead at the roads of Papermill fading into farmland, the truck drawing closer and closer to the malicious impetus of their struggle. Suddenly, he wishes that Holden had forsaken him and run instead of going digging for the possum and the secret hidden beneath its carcass. He wishes he never took it. He wishes he never knew about it, that he and David and Tuck had never left Papermill all of those long months ago. Everything would be different if they’d only taken a different assignment. David would be alive, Tuck might not hate him, and Holden …. 

As the truck rounds the corner to Orchard Road, Bill’s pulse spikes. Beyond the dried corn stalks shivering in the October breeze, he can see the apple tree alone in the field, a blot against an otherwise unencumbered landscape. 

“Stop here.” He whispers. 

Brudos pulls off to the side of the road. 

Once everyone climbs out of the car, Rissell pulls a shovel and a length of rope from the trunk. Bill’s stomach flips, but he doesn’t ask what the rope is for. He’s certain he’ll find out soon enough.

Putting one firm hand across Bill’s shoulders, Tuck presses the gun to his ribs, and nudges him toward the tree. They walk ahead of the rest of the party, propelled forward by Tuck’s long, impatient strides. 

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Bill says, keeping his voice low. “I know you probably don’t think I mean that, but I do.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do. Now that I’m about to strip you of that money.”

“I don’t want the money.”

“Of course you do. You’re just repeating history, Bill.” Tuck says, uttering a bemused sigh. “If you could change the ending of this story, you would run off into the sunset with your homosexual lover, abandon your wife, your job, your fucking dignity - just like you intended to do with David. It’s a thing I’ll never understand.”

“I don’t expect you to.” 

Tuck scoffs, shaking his head. “I thought I knew you.”

“I thought  _ I _ knew _ you _ .” 

“You did. The people you trust are the ones who can destroy you. I guess I trusted you too much, more than anyone else. You were my friend, my brother-”

“You were my friend, too. And I’d tell you again it doesn’t have to be like this, but I know you think it does.” 

“Well, Bill, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing in its entirety. I’ve always believed that. If our places had been exchanged that day, you wouldn’t have walked off Wopsononock Mountain alive. You should have put a bullet in my head, then. Now I have to finish what you started.”

“I know.”

They fall silent for a moment except for the brittle rustle of their boots over withered grass. 

Finally, Tuck sighs again. “I’m sorry, too.”

“You are?” Bill asks, skeptically. 

“Yes. I never wanted this. I thought - or hoped - that once we got the money, we could see each other again in another, better life. Maybe on some beach in Mexico. I figured we’d have a beer, reminisce how we managed to pull it off … In my dream, you and me and Nancy and Mary and the kids were all there together; and we were happy.”

“But not David?”

Tuck’s eyes are cold when he flicks Bill a decisive glance, but he looks straight ahead again without answering. 

The apple tree is dark green against the pure blue of the sky, it’s branches stretching outward in a lazy halo from it’s sturdy, gnarled trunk. As they draw closer, the held breath in Bill’s lungs releases with a punch when he notices the disturbed dirt at the foot of the tree and the remains of a dead possum laid aside from the hole. 

Tuck stops walking. 

Brudos’ shoulder collides with Bill’s as he rushes past him to the hole. He stares down into the empty cavern, his mouth slipping open with disbelief and mounting rage. 

“Is this where it was?”

Bill swallows hard. “Yes.”

“It’s fucking empty!” Brudos laments, sinking to his knees by the hole and digging his fingers into the loose dirt despite it’s obvious vacancy. 

Tuck jams the gun harder into Bill’s bruised ribs, forcing him closer to the opened earth where the trunk of money and the possum had once resided in bitter symbiosis. 

“Who took it? Was it Ford?” Tuck demands. 

Gritting his teeth against the rift of pain, Bill shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do! Where the hell did he take it?” 

When Bill refuses to answer Tuck’s queries, Brudos clambers to his feet, and yanks his gun from his holster. His face is flushed red with anger and desperation, his eyes struck wide with dreadful panic. As he rushes past them, Bill can see it caving in on him - the realization that everything he’s done, every crime he’s committed, will be for nothing if he can’t get his hands on Speck’s treasure. 

“You better fucking tell me right now, you piece of shit!” Brudos shouts, grabbing Nancy by the arm and pressing the gun to her head once more. 

“I can’t tell you if I don’t know!” Bill retorts, wrenching against Tuck’s grip on his arm. “Goddamnit, Jerry, look at me! Why would I lie to you?”

“Because, you just want to give your precious little priest enough time to get away with  _ our  _ money!”

“No! I don’t know where it is! Please-”

Bill’s plea ends with a guttural cry when Tuck kicks him in the back of the knee, forcing him down to his knees. A rough fist sinks into his hair, yanks his head back. All he can see is the blue dome of the sky fringed with tree branches, and Tuck’s face mangled with anger. Gone is the old friend commiserating with apologies; the skeletal structure of a man plagued with bitterness and greed is exposed, bones blanched white and terrifying beneath the sun. 

“You think I won’t do this? I will.” Tuck growls, shoving the gun under Bill’s chin. 

“Okay, okay-” Bill whispers, his eyes wrinkling against abrupt, bracing tears. 

His lungs shudder with panicked breaths as he glimpses Nancy and Brian in his peripheral vision, quivering beneath the threat of Rissell and Brudos’ drawn weapons. He presses his eyes shut against the sting, the stone of guilt and dread sinking to his gut, the intuition that if he doesn’t speak now, this day is going to end just the way Wopsononock Mountain did - shed blood, innocent lives lost, all for nothing. 

“What? Tell me.” Tuck says, yanking on his hair. 

“Okay.” Bill chokes out, “Yes, the money is gone. I told Holden where it was.”

“And?”

“And it’s gone. I don’t know where he took it.”

“You fucking…” Tuck begins, anger suffocating his brusque tone before he can finish. 

His gun comes down across the back of Bill’s head. 

_ Thud.  _ Bill hears the sound echo through his skull, feels the pain explode. Everything goes dark. 

It feels like only scarce, black seconds before his eyelids are slipping open again; then his face is pressed to the prickly grass just before Rissell and Tuck jostle him. He catches fragmented glimpses of Nancy crying and fighting against Brudos’ grip on her wrist, but he can’t hear her voice. Everything is muffled as if he’s swimming underwater. He can sense the riveting, self-preserving panic igniting in his chest. He can sense the shadow of death - a face he’s seen in his dreams, a shroud he’s shrugged off for just as long as he can; but though he knows he’s about to die, he can’t convince his limbs to move, can’t dig down into his gut for a call to action any longer. It feels like fate, the scales of the universe finally balancing, David reaching from beyond a darkened glass to pull him through to the other side.

Rissell slips the knotted noose over his head, and tosses the other end over a thick tree branch overhead. When he pulls hard, the coarse rope snaps taut around Bill’s neck, hauling him up onto his knees. 

“Wait …” Bill rasps out, casting Tuck an imploring gaze. 

“Last words?” Tuck asks, holding up a hand to Rissell in an order to pause the gradual hanging. 

“Please-”

“Don’t.” Tuck sneers, “Don’t die crying like a faggot, Bill.”

“No …” Bill swallows hard against the rope cutting into his throat. “Do what you want to me, but promise … promise Nancy and Brian walk away.” 

Tuck’s brow furrows, but he gives a stoic nod. It’s the last of his friend that Bill sees. The next second, he nods at Rissell to continue, and the rope applies brutal pressure to Bill’s esophagus that forces him to clamber to his feet. 

His knees are quivering once he’s upright, the first burst of adrenaline as his body fights its fate. Everything goes sharp and acute. The pulse in his temples. The burn of the rope. The pressure on his chest. The wind on his face. The tree branch overhead bearing his weight, groaning and protesting. Nancy’s screaming. 

He doesn’t open his eyes. Tries to tell himself not to fight it; but he does. His lungs wheeze. His nostrils flare against stammered, fierce inhales. His nails tear at the rope, and his toes dig into the dirt as the pressure of the noose keeps increasing, taking away the last of his purchase on solid ground. It’s a losing battle, but still, his instincts tell him to fight. 

In the fading, black seconds, he doesn’t think about Nancy even though she’s screaming and crying. He doesn’t think about Brian. He sees David’s face. Then Holden’s. And he wishes he had told Holden the last time he saw him:  _ I’m sorry you tried to save me. I’m sorry you ruined yourself for me. I’m sorry you trusted me and I destroyed you.  _ But he hadn’t, and now he can’t - and they’re both going to die for his mistakes, his greed, for money. The last things he had ever wanted to die for. 

The dull hum in his head and the numb cold taking over his limbs shatters suddenly with a deafening crack. Rissell shouts in pain. He lets go of the rope, and Bill drops to the ground before he can recognize that his limbs are still faintly functioning. 

As the realization that he’s somehow been spared strikes him, Bill yanks the noose away from his throat, and sucks in a desperate breath. The rush of oxygen going to his brain is bracing, but he forces his wet, stinging eyes to blink open to the field. 

Wendy stands at a distance of ten yards with a Winchester rifle braced against her shoulder, her cheek to the stock and sights. The barrel smokes. She’s flanked by three BOI agents. 

“Federal agents! Let them go!” Wendy shouts, “Get down on your knees, and put your hands in the air!”

Relief surges through Bill’s chest. His head is swimming, but he manages to get up to his knees. A glance over his shoulder affirms that Rissell is lying dead in the grass. The bullet had entered the middle of his forehead. 

“Don’t shoot!” Brudos replies, holding up his hands. “I’m the law around here, lady!”

“Not for much longer, Sheriff Brudos,” Wendy shouts. “Now get on your knees!”

Brudos sinks down to the ground, his face etched with dismay. 

Grabbing Brian’s hand, Nancy runs from beneath the apple tree. She pauses when she reaches Wendy, whispering haltingly, “Thank you.”

During this brief interaction, Tuck grabs Bill by the collar, and forces him to his feet with his pistol shoved between his shoulder blades. 

“Get up,” Tuck hisses. 

“Tuck, don’t-”

The gun presses cold and hard to Bill’s temple. 

“I’ll kill him!” Tuck shouts out, wrapping his other arm around Bill’s neck. “If you want to bring me in, you’re going to have to kill him first!”

“Agent McNeil, don’t do this!” Wendy replies, striding toward the tree with her rifle still raised. 

“I mean it! Not a step closer!”

“You don’t want it to end like this. You’ve already killed one good man. Don’t make it two.”

“None of us are good men, Agent Carr. We’re all on the path of perdition toward Hell, but I’ll be damned if I let you send me there today. Now back the fuck down!”

“We can’t just let you go.”

Bill raises his hands. “Wendy, it’s okay.”

Wendy stares across the field at him, her face pinched with worry. “Bill-”

“No, it’s okay. Let us go.” Bill says, hoarsely, his damaged vocal chords barely producing enough volume to reach across the field. “He wants to get me alone. So be it. It’s all going to be okay.”

Wendy glances at the other three agents, and Bill can see that she’s considering strategy. Try to fire, risk a bullet in Bill’s head. Let them go, risk Tuck putting it there. 

“Let’s go.” Tuck whispers, grinding the nose of the gun into Bill’s temple. 

His arm tightens around Bill’s neck as he leads them backwards. Bill submits, keeping his hands raised. Each step is staggered, his body still weak from the near hanging and forcing him to lean back against Tuck for support. 

Tuck keeps his body shielded behind Bill’s taller frame as they move backwards. His forehead is pressed to Bill’s nape, mouth exhaling hot, panicked breath beneath his collar. They’re both shaking, and Bill knows that Tuck is just as scared of how this day will end as he is. He’d just wanted to be with his family, after all. The money was a means to an end. It was for Bill, too, but Tuck will never understand how their love had once carried the same trajectory.

The progress is slow across the field toward the opposite wall of dried, shriveled corn stalks. Bill watches Wendy and Nancy grow smaller on the horizon, backed by the skyline of Papermill, it’s small and disgruntled crouching. He thinks once they make it into cover he’s dead. He’s already made peace with it. 

But once they retreat into the bare corn stalks, Tuck’s arm retreats from his neck. 

“Now what?” Bill whispers, turning slowly to face him. 

Tuck aims the gun at Bill’s chest, but his hand is shaking. “Now I end it.”

“They’ll be coming. You can’t hold them off forever.”

“I know, but I gotta make this right.”

“Right? This can never be right again. Please, Tuck, I’ll let you leave right now. I’ll let you run. Please-”

“Run? Isn’t that what you told me last time?”

“Yes, but-”

“No, it ain’t different. You weren’t helping me then, and you aren’t right now. Goddmanit, Bill, why didn’t you just put a bullet in my head that day?” Tuck demands, taking a staggered step closer and pressing the gun to Bill’s chest. His eyes shimmer with tears. “It would have been better for all of us!”

“Come on, Tuck. You know I couldn’t have done that.”

“I didn’t think you could betray me the way you did either,” Tuck says, swiping at his dusty cheek with a sleeve. A wet smear is left behind, glistening in the dying sunlight. 

“I lied to you. I never meant to betray you.”

“You did. With  _ him _ . With David. How could you-”

“How could I what? Love someone who wasn’t you?”

They both stop, breathing heavily. 

Tuck’s brow furrows deeper. His mouth is quivering and his grip on the gun is failing. It slips down Bill’s chest, toward his belly. 

“I did love you, Tuck.” Bill whispers, reaching up gingerly to guide Tuck’s gun away from his body. “You carried me out of the trenches. You saved my life. Everything I have, I owe to you.”

Tuck blinks, sending a tear streaking down his cheek. “You mean that?”

Bill shifts closer, casting a quick glance down at his hand cradling Tuck’s hand and the gun. There’s no resistance in Tuck’s grip. He’s wavering, leaning closer as Bill approaches. 

“Yes.” Bill whispers, pressing his forehead to Tuck’s. “I never wanted any of this. I wanted what you wanted. That Mexico beach. Us being happy, together.”

Tuck sniffs against a sob. His eyes squeeze shut, setting tears free down his cheeks. 

“We can still do it.” Bill continues, reaching between them with his other hand to cradle Tuck’s limp fingers and the revolver between his palms. “We can leave, never look back. It doesn’t have to end like this. We could be happy still.”

“You mean that?” Tuck repeats. 

Bill opens his eyes, and looks into his friend’s eyes. His chest hurts worse than the suffocation of the noose. 

“Yes.” He whispers, again. 

With a deafening crack, the gun goes off, and the heat of spent fire radiates between them.

Tuck gasps, seizes. His eyes are struck wide open, the bloodshot whites stark against the blown, black territory of his pupils. Confusion is followed closely by pain and panic. His mouth keeps moving, but nothing emerges. 

Bill lowers Tuck to the matted dirt littered with a bed of shriveled corn husks. His fingers are numb and thick with horror, but he manages to twist the gun free from their tangled hands and throw it away. 

Tuck squirms weakly in pain. His eyes are fixed toward the sky, pinched with agony and shock while his hands clutch at his bleeding chest where the bullet ripped open ribs and flesh. A horrific, damp wheezing sound tears from within after every fluttering gasp of his lips. 

Gaze blurring with tears, Bill leans over him, and strokes a hand through Tuck’s wild, auburn hair. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, “God, Tuck, I’m so fucking sorry.”

Tuck whimpers softly. “Bill …”

“You made me do this.” Bill says, his voice growing hoarse and distant in his head. “Why did you make me do this to you, Tuck? Why?”

Tuck doesn’t answer. His lungs are filling with blood, heart sputtering out. He blinks and frowns up at the sky, viewing that resplendent shade of blue in flashes of tunneling black. The stripped corn stalks around them sway and rustle in the breeze, and somewhere across the field, a bird shrieks a lonely lament. 

Bill closes his eyes against the rushing flood of tears that he can’t hold back any longer, petting Tuck’s hair and damp cheeks with fervent, loving strokes. He wants to take it back. More than ever, he wants to take it all back. But it’s done. Someone else instead of him is dying again. 

“Bill …” Tuck manages a faint, scratchy whisper. 

Bill lifts his head, meeting Tuck’s fading gaze through a sheen of tears. He rubs his thumb across Tuck’s pale cheek in response, his throat too knotted to reply. 

“Mary …” Tuck breathes out. His body twitches, his breathing staggering in painful, short bursts. “M-mary …”

“I’ll tell her.” Bill chokes out, “I’ll take care of her and the kids, Tuck. I promise. They’re gonna be okay. I promise.” 

Tuck’s tortured writhing eases. In these final seconds, the scowl and tension melt from his face. He looks up at the sky, and gives a choked laugh even as a tear wanders in a slow, thin line down his temple. 

Bill wants to ask him what could be so fucking funny about dying in his friend’s arms - his friend who betrayed him, his friend that he loathes. 

Tuck is gone before he has the chance. Like much of the past year - and if he’s honest, their entire friendship from the battlefields of Germany to the backwoods of Pennsylvania - he’ll never know what harbored irony, what wild burst of the imagination, or abstruse but passionate thought crossed Tuck’s mind before darkness closed in. 

^^^

When Holden reaches St. Stephen’s with the metal trunk dragging behind him, he’s sweating profusely beneath his blacks, and his body is aching. It looks to him as if Brudos’ deputies had already come and gone. The thug’s dead body is removed, but there’s still blood on the floor. His office and the parsonage are torn apart. At the moment, he can’t spare a thought to what might have been damaged or stolen. 

He uses the telephone in the kitchen to call the BOI headquarters. One of the agents in Bill and Wendy’s department informs him that she had already called in the cavalry. They aren’t, however, aware that Gunn is missing, but the man promises he’ll contact the task force for further assistance. 

After Holden hangs up, he goes back outside to conceal the trunk. Before putting it back in the ground, he cautiously lifts the lid to survey the banded bills still freshly minted after all this time. When he weighs one of the gold bars in his hand, the reality of what he’s done finally strikes him. 

Once he’s done, he goes back into the parsonage. Sitting at the kitchen table, he stares down at the dirt and calluses forming on his palms. Tears well in his eyes. He can only pray that Nancy and Brian are unharmed, and that Wendy got to Bill before Brudos and Tuck could hurt him. He should have stayed to make certain of it instead of going for the money. It’s what any good person would have done. 

Leaping to his feet, Holden goes to the kitchen sink to desperately scrub the dirt from his hands. The raw calluses shear away, leaving behind open wounds, and he lets the cold sting of the water wash over them. He lowers his head, and reaches his left hand in for his rosary. It comes up empty just before he remembers that he gave it to Brian. 

The sound of a car approaching and a door slamming interrupts his subdued misery. Fresh fear ignites in his chest as he wonders if it's the BOI or the deputies returning; but when he dries his hands, and slips out the back door of the parsonage, he sees that it’s neither. 

A man in a black cassock holds the car door open for a regal man in red robes stepping out of the back seat. The old archbishop straightens, and casts a critical gaze across the front of St. Stephen’s Church before glimpsing Holden shuffling across the grass toward them. 

“Ah, Father Ford,” Archbishop Francis Vickers says, a friendly smile warming the otherwise cold disregard in his eyes. 

“Monsignor,” Holden murmurs, pressing a kiss to the extended ring. “May I ask to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Vickers retrieves his hand, smile fading. “I’d think you already know. Let’s go inside and talk.”

Nausea thickens in Holden’s belly as the archbishop strides past him toward the parsonage. The vicar motions for Holden to follow him, his dour gaze brooking no argument. 

When they enter the apartment, Vickers absorbs the disarray with slack-jawed shock. 

“What happened here, Father Ford?”

“The sheriff’s deputies.” Holden says, “They know …”

“Know what?” Vickers demands, turning around to cast him a cutting glare. 

Holden swallows hard. “About the … the undercover operation. I’m sorry. Isn’t that what you’re here about?”

Vickers’ nostrils flare with an incensed breath, and he takes a threatening step closer to Holden. 

“No, Father. What I am here about are allegations of misconduct, violation of your vows, and unnatural relations with a male congregant. Now you mean to tell me that you’re also involved in some kind of ‘undercover operation’ to what …? Implicate the law enforcement in this town?”

Holden’s mouth moves in wordless shock. He can feel all his blood rushing to his cheeks and the nausea in his stomach expanding into sodden humiliation. 

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?” Vickers demands. 

Mortified tears sting Holden’s eyes. He stares at his feet, and draws in a deep breath before forcing himself to meet Vickers’ enraged gaze again. 

“The people in power in this town are all corrupt. I did what I thought was right.”

“Right?” Vickers echoes, “And completely obliterated your sanctity before God in the process?”

“How do you know?”

“How I know barely matters.” Vickers says, waving a dismissive hand. “The point is, my child, you cannot stay here. You are to leave immediately, and never make contact with the man in question again.”

“But, I-”

“No,” Vickers says, holding up a hand. “This is yet another horrible stain on this diocese’s reputation after Father Jacobsen. We cannot allow it, and you cannot either. You could be excommunicated. Do you understand?”

Holden lowers his chin as a wave of tears rise too strongly to swallow down. 

“Your only hope is a sabbatical and rehabilitation.” Vickers continues, almost gentle when he puts a hand on Holden’s shoulder. “If you want your own parish again, you’ll do it. And you will do it far away from here, away from whatever insidious temptation led you astray.”

Holden nods, mutely. 

“As far as this  _ operation _ , you’ll tell me everything I need to know, who I should be in contact with. From now on, your contacts should go directly through me.”

“Yes, Monsignor.” 

“Good.” Vickers says, drawing a deep breath. He glances around the apartment, and shakes his head. “What a mess.”

Holden carefully wipes his eyes, and follows the archbishop’s perusal with his own. He can’t help but share the same sentiment. 

“Pack a bag. Quickly.” Vickers orders, waving a brisk hand at Holden. “We’re leaving.”

“I should get a message to Agent Wendy Carr and her team in the fraud department at the Bureau of Investigation to let them know I’m safe.”

Vickers’ bushy brows pucker with a disbelieving scowl. “The Bureau of Investigation?”

“Yes. It’s a federal task force backed by the DOJ and the Treasury Departments.”

“What have you gotten yourself into, my child?”

“Justice, I hope.” Holden says, “A measure of atonement for my sins.”

In his bedroom, he hastily packs a bag. Most of his belongings are still back at Wendy’s house, leaving him with only a few items to stow in the leather duffel. 

When he’s done, the room is bare except for the disheveled sheets strewn on the bed. He runs his fingertips across the edge of the mattress, faintly clinging to the memory of what he and Bill had shared in the haven of these four walls. 

_ If you come away with me, we could have this every day.  _

Holden shakes his head to dislodge the memory of Bill’s voice influencing his decisions, his logic, his faith. He has to get himself back on the righteous path starting today. No more indulging in sins he knows are wrong. No more turning his back on God. No more standing before a faithful congregation and pretending to be a pious priest while his heart is blacked with sin. He must face first the consequences, and then his God-given destiny. 

The three men walk back out to the car in silence. Holden sits in the back with the archbishop while his stoic vicar slides behind the wheel to steer them away from St. Stephen’s. As the car departs the curb, Holden turns around to watch the familiar, stone façade of the church shrink in the distance, it’s stained-glass windows like weeping eyes watching him leave it all behind. 

In the distance, he hears the pop of gunfire, but he doesn’t shed any more tears. Beyond a quiet prayer for Bill’s safety, he divorces himself from the fragile warmth of emotion. 


End file.
